


Bridges

by thesecondseal



Series: Acts of Reclamation [12]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Ballroom Dancing, Blood and Injury, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Healing, Masturbation, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Skyhold, The Winter Palace (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:56:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5173670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journey to and through the Winter Palace throws into stark relief those bridges Cari, Cullen, and Essa much each cross.  Some separately, some together. </p><p>And some just have to be burned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Warrior

“You want me to  _what_?” Krem stared at her, eyes almost comically wide in the pale morning light.

“Yeah,” Sera added helpfully. “You want him to  _what_?”

Cari withheld a nervous sigh and, through a feat of will that she would have once doubted she possessed, refrained from twisting her hands together before her. She had not expected an audience for her appeal, though she supposed it served her right for blurting the words at poor Krem before he had gained the top of the stairs. Over two months had passed since Adamant, and while one of those had been spent marching back across Orlais, in the weeks since their return a morning had rarely passed that Sera did not join them for breakfast and training. 

Cari could blame only her own anxiety that she had missed Sera’s light tread on the stairs behind him. She was still a bit groggy, having hardly slept the night before once she realized her only recourse.

“Please, forgive me.” She stepped back to allow them both into Essa’s—the Inquisitor’s, she corrected herself—quarters. “I should not have shouted at you.”

“You hardly shouted.” Krem’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Sera’s face was an exaggerated version of his consternation.

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you shout,” she mused, bounding up to drop a sloppy kiss on Cari’s cheek. “Must be a sight. I hear you yelled at Cully and Es once.”

“I did,” Cari admitted without elaboration. Sera stuck her tongue out at her for her offense. “There’s tea if you’d like.”

She gestured toward the table and the sumptuous spread that had been prepared. Cari worried now that it was too much. That she was too much. She had a terrible habit of overdoing such things, focusing on tiny details that Essa’s friends would never care about, but no one ever seemed to criticize.

“It’s heavy enough for breakfast if you haven’t eaten.”

“Woulda liked to see that,” Sera said, slapping Cari on the back as she passed. “You’ve got real food in there with all the fancy.”

She sang her praise and sprawled down into an elegant chair, one leg slung over an arm of silk brocade. The look she shot Cari was as sharp as her arrows and shrewd. She selected one of the sweet spiced cakes that Cari had requested precisely because she knew how much Krem liked them.

“You starting to give Es some competition as my favorite inky.” Sera smiled at her, teeth a sharp flash as she popped a tiny open-faced sandwich into her mouth.

“I will have to let Essa know that you can be bribed with food,” Cari exaggerated her prim retort, earned a chortle of glee. “It is unfair for me to take advantage of her ignorance.”

“That’s rubbish and you know it,” Sera scoffed. “Es knows. Just doesn’t care about stuff like this. Does slip me peppermints, though, when she manages a score for her horses.”

It was so like Essa that Cari could only smile. She turned back to Krem. He had not yet left landing, one hand gripped the banister, knuckles just lightening beneath the force of his grip.

“Krem?”

His brown eyes found hers, held for exactly one heartbeat longer than was strictly proper. Cari took a deep breath, wavering uncertainly between joining Sera and standing listlessly before him.

“I’m going to need something stronger than tea.” His voice was weak with disbelief. “If you’re serious about what I think you just asked.”

“There’s cider,” Cari said apologetically as he pushed himself into the room, pacing past her and the parlor seating to the sideboard. It had been weeks since he stopped waiting for an invitation at the top of the stairs and Cari liked watching him move across the large space, unnatural etiquettes long exchanged for familiar politeness.  “A few bottles of wine. I need to have the cabinet restocked before Essa returns.”

She smoothed her hands down the front of her skirt in a rare display of disquiet. The wool was lightweight, a soft fall of lavender shot through with rose-colored threads. It was the first outfit she had worn in nearly a week that was anything she would have chosen for herself. She had been impersonating her sister for almost five straight days, zipping around Skyhold in tall boots and the beige uniform Ambassador Montilyet was too happy to see being given its proper use.  Her only respite was when she fell into Essa’s bed too tired to bother with any of her nightly routine.

“Right,” Sera said around a mouthful of cake. “Because Es spends all that time up here drinking.”

Krem’s laughter drifted back to them. The sound was welcome, one that Cari greatly preferred over his silence, and it beat back the lingering chill of the early autumn night.  “She’ll be here even less than before, I’d wager.”

“Sucker’s bet,” Sera accused, leering cheerfully. “She and Cully Wully—“

“I want you to break my nose!” Cari interjected quickly, interrupting what had become a daily prediction on how Sera thought Essa was spending her time with Commander Cullen.

Each day her prognostications became increasingly lewd and improbably acrobatic. Cari was starting to wonder if some of Sera’s suggestions were even possible.  It was a curiosity she could have gone the whole of her life without.

Sera snorted with barely contained laughter. Cari made her way to the couch “accidentally” bumping Sera’s leg hard enough to upset the girl’s diligent sprawl. The resulting icing on her upturned nose was an unexpected windfall.  

“Oh, Sera, I do apologize.” Cari hid a grin that Sera returned to her, blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Nice,” Sera said. “I almost thought you were getting clumsy.”

“Almost?”

“You ain’t clumsy on your worst day. Might change when you take a fist to the face. You really sure?”

“I am.” She sank to the edge of the couch, began pouring tea for her and Sera as Krem finally crossed the room to join them, cider in hand.  “So far it has been the only giveaway. I have mastered her patterns of speech and even her walk—“

“That ‘damnable swagger’,” Sera quoted with a grin.

Cari had let her frustration slip once, and Sera was never going to let her forget it.

“Yes.” Cari’s lips drew down into a moue. “But people remember Essa’s nose. If she’s spent more than two minutes in conversation with someone…”

She placed a delicate cup and saucer before Sera before returning to her own.

“It would be different if I could wear a mask to the Winter Palace, but the Inquisition will not be doing so.”

“Political transparency,” Sera mumbled in a derisive singsong. “Only thing worse than the Game, playin’ it with one arm bound behind your back.”

Cari couldn’t help but agree.

Krem said nothing, brows drawn down in thought. Cari tried not to watch him too closely as he settled into the high-backed armchair that she had come to think of as his. He sank low against the plush velvet, hips forward on the seat, legs stretched out easy before him with ankles crossed beneath the over-burdened table.  After months of mornings spent in the Inquisitor’s quarters, training her in basic hand to hand combat, testing her progress as she struggled to build strength and stamina that might could be—at least to the unfamiliar—mistaken for Essa’s, he was comfortable here.

“Are you sure you know what you’re asking for?” he asked finally, gaze lifting over the pewter edge of his tankard.

“I am.”

She wasn’t. She knew only that it was necessary. There were countless portraits of Essa across the realms, fine oils and rough sketches in varying degrees of accuracy, but the one thing they all depicted in perfect detail was the crooked bridge of Essa’s nose.

Krem took a sip, nodded once to himself and then took another. He glanced to Sera and a wordless exchange passed between them. She nodded once, with more decisiveness than he had, then tossed back her tea with an inelegant gulp.

“Right then.” She hopped to her feet, grabbed a handful of berries and a couple of pastries from the table. “I’ll leave you to it. Send for me when you don’t talk her out of it. Stubborn as her sister.”

She kicked Cari’s foot affectionately and headed for the stairs.

“Not quite as stubborn,” Cari corrected. “But thank you for the compliment.”

Sera snorted, called back over her shoulder. “Didn’t mean it as one, but she seems to think it is too.”

Cari sipped her tea, listening as Sera stomped down the stairs making far more noise than someone her size needed to. She would have to find a way to thank her for the consideration. It had been a hard summer for Sera, and Cari knew that she hadn’t wanted to like her. “Too proper” and all that. But they had grown on one another–like mold! Sera was oft to yell–and when Cari forgot to be cautious, she counted Sera as a one of her dearest friends.

“Back later!” Sera shouted.

The door at the bottom of the stairs slammed and silence slid like sunlight through the windows. A spear of crimson light filtered down from the stained glass overhead, pierced the red and gold chintz of her cup to tint the inside bright pink. The Inquisition had its own china pattern. Cari was looking forward to hearing Essa’s reaction upon her return. It promised to be at least as impressive and profanity laden as Sera’s had been.

“Come here.”

The request broke through her anxious distraction and she dragged her gaze from her teacup to Krem. He was close enough that she could smell the familiar combination of leather and armor polish and sandalwood as he leaned forward to place his tankard amid the dainty fare on the table before her. It was hardly the closest he had been to her, but training and sparring were far less intimate than gentle extensions of companionship. In the months since she came to Skyhold, he had pulled her from the floor so many times that Cari had lost count, and there was something soothing in the knowledge that that total was exactly one more than the number of times he had knocked her there.  

“Yes, of course.” Cari could only hope her trepidation did not show as her fingers slid over his.

She waited for him to yank her to her feet, was so prepared for his usual friendly energy that she nearly leapt from the couch when he simply lifted, hand a whisper of patience beneath hers. He caught her elbow when she overbalanced and she remembered the care he had taken with her when they first met. She had grown too accustomed to his behavior toward her of late, she thought with a flush of chagrin, but this was something else entirely.  She was not wandering around Skyhold impersonating her sister.

“Cari?” Her name on his lips grounded her, brought her back into herself after almost a week of being someone else. Not Essa truly, but the Inquisitor, someone with Essa’s face and fame and very little of her heart.

“I’m fine,” she said softly, but she didn’t want to brush his concern away. It was too precious for its rarity. He held her arm gently as she stepped past the seating. “Thank you, Krem.”

“Of course.”

She wanted to beg him to say her name again, wanted to repeat his like a chant. They were not often Cari and Krem, but rather Krem and the Inquisitor, and while he had an unapologetic fondness for Essa, he never treated Cari with the same affable informality.

“Where are we going?” she asked, annoyed to find her voice had fallen low in the sudden shift of the morning. The air was close now, heavy and hallowed in ways she didn’t quite understand.

“I think there’s someone you need to see.”

To her confusion, he led her to Essa’s bathing chamber.

“What..?”

Her skirts pressed against Krem’s legs as he kept pace beside her. She missed his nearness when he paused to allow her to precede him into the smaller room.

“What do I need to see?” Cari asked in confusion.

He drew her to a halt before the oval standing mirror beside the empty tub, but he did not release her hand. His fingers were warm, even through her glove, and Cari fought not to clasp his hand tightly as she stared at their reflections. He was a study of browns, leather over plate, sun-tossed skin and russet hair. Everything about him was warm and solid and safe. His eyes deepened toward chocolate when he was concerned, and he was concerned now. Cari couldn’t imagine what she had done to deserve his worry.

“Yourself,” Krem told her, voice uncharacteristically rough.

Cari frowned and he continued without waiting for her response.

“Is this is you, my lady?” She started to protest the title, but he shook his head. “You are a lady, even Sera says it without curling her lip when you aren’t around.”

He smiled gently, gaze searching hers in the cold surface of the looking glass. “Do you know what it’s like to look in the mirror and see someone other than who you are?”

Did she know who she was? Cari wondered. Had she ever?

“Right now it’s just window dressing,” Krem told her. “Different clothes, different mannerisms. It’s a game you’re playing, but it’s not you. Your nose…”

He reached up, ran one finger down the long elegant line. Cari shivered and he pulled away, an unspoken apology in the sudden recoil.

“This is yours,” he murmured, dropping his hand to his side. “You ever wonder what Essa sees every time she looks in a mirror?”

Cari shook her head. Essa wasn’t one to spend much time with her reflection.

“She sees her husband,” Krem said simply.

Her eyes widened in surprise. She had never considered…

Krem released her hand abruptly, took a step back. Then another.

“You’re going to have it twice as bad,” he told her from the door. “You’re going to see your sister staring back at you, and you’re going to see the face of the one who scars you. You need to be certain you know what you’re doing.”

“I can’t go in her place like this,” Cari protested. Was he refusing her?

“I know.” He offered no further argument as he turned to leave. “But you need to be certain,” he repeated.

“I’m not going to be certain.” She spun back toward him. “Krem, please, wait a moment.”

She hurried after him, caught his arm before he reached the stairs.

“I have to,” she whispered. “Do you understand? This is something I can do for her. For everyone.”

He glanced down at her hand and she let go as if his questioning stare had somehow wounded her.

“I know one thing with any certainty,” Cari said, lifting her chin before she caught the haughty action for the bad habit that it was. “I have chosen this path. It might not be the best, but it is mine, Krem. This is something I can do for her. For the Inquisition. Essa at the Winter Palace would be a disaster and I would spare her the meeting with Diarmont’s mother.”

She paced away from him, spun back in as swirl of color. “I was not always a good sister. This has been my greatest regret. If doing this—“ she pointed to her nose. “Means seeing Essa’s face in the mirror for the rest of my life, so what? It can be no worse than closing my eyes every night for ten years and seeing her trapped in a prison from which I could not rescue her.”

She closed her eyes, drew in a short, ragged breath before she opened them again. “Yes, I am certain.”

“Alright.” He seemed satisfied enough with her tirade. “It’s going to hurt.”

“I know.”

Krem smiled then, the expression brittle on the edges, but true. “You don’t.”

“I don’t,” she agreed with a jerky nod.

“I’ll get Stitches, come back tonight. You’re…probably not going to want to be out and about tomorrow.”

“That bad?” Cari asked.

“Not for most of us, but if the worst injury you’ve ever suffered was that black eye you were so proud of…”

She bit her lip. “It was,” she admitted, and yes, she had been proud. She had moved too quickly for him to pull his punch in time. It had been a grand testament to all that she had accomplished.

“You’re certain you want me to do it?” He glanced away from her quickly, hiding secrets in warm shadows, softening the wound with a half-smile.

“Who else?” Cari asked, and he missed that the question was rhetorical.

“There are others more skilled with their hands. I could—“

She touched his arm, drew his gaze back to her as she shook her head. She didn’t want to know what kind of skillset could lead to such precision, but she knew that she did not want those hands on her.

“No. Thank you. I…” she shrugged, and it was her turn to look away. “If it is as you say, if I’m to see Essa and whomever…”

She couldn’t think of a polite way to phrase it, so she didn’t try.

“I would rather it be you.”

“Suit yourself.” His voice was rough and for a moment Cari feared she had offended him. He cleared his throat, tried for teasing. “Your sister is not going to be pleased.”

“Oh!” Cari covered her mouth with one hand. “Do you think she’ll be angry with you?”

He grinned, head tipping back as a jolt of laughter burst toward the ceiling easing knots around Cari’s heart. “Oh, not with me, my lady.”


	2. Heart Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cari burns her first bridge. Essa and Cullen return to Skyhold. Mayhem ensues. Some mostly fluff before the Winter Palace makes us all cranky. tw: for blood tw: alcohol use.

 

“You seem busier than usual,” Leliana observed casually from the shadows of the rookery.

The tower was quiet, empty of so many now that the weather had turned cool and crisp, and the leaves were fire-edged. The courtyards were filled with faces turned to the last of the season’s good weather, soaking up what light they could before the long winter settled in upon the Frostback Mountains. Cari counted few murmured voices, numbered the ravens rustling in the quiet gloom. Leliana’s eyes were deceptively jejune as she watched her, lips relaxed into an almost smile. Cari had suspected once that this was the exact opposite of her actual feelings, but now she knew Leliana always led with a facet of truth to shade her subterfuge. She thought it was why Essa and the animals had less trouble reading her than the rest of them, but there was no way to know for sure.

“There is more to do than usual,” Cari replied with a shrug that still felt rough and inelegant.  “We depart in less than a week.”

Only peasants shrugged, her mother had been oft to say in her attempts to quail Essa’s coarsest mannerisms. Not that such criticisms were ever met with more than another, more exaggerated shrug. Why should Essa have bothered to please a woman who spoke perhaps a dozen words a month to her?

Come to that, why should she?

“Inquisitor?”

“I’m sorry, Sister Leliana.” Cari shook her head, scattered her thoughts to the dark and quiet, left them like bones beneath the birds. Her mother could not reach her here, and she was right that she owed her nothing. “Ambassador Montilyet said that you wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” She gently chuffed one of the closest ravens beneath the beak. “Will you walk with me?”

“Of course.”

Cari followed her outside onto the battlements, blinking in the sudden brightness of the day. She turned her face to the light, marveling at how she no longer felt the heat as discomfort on her skin. Her complexion had darkened nicely, freckles scattering across her nose and cheeks. Krem was wrong if he thought the line of her nose was what would most remind her Essa.

“We’ve received two personal letters for your sister,” Leliana began, walking along the curving footpath until they stood downwind from any possible ears. “As you suspected, Madame Baudin will be in attendance at the Winter Palace. She expresses great interest in meeting the woman who ensnared her son’s passions so long ago.”

“Those were her exact words?” Cari asked quietly.

Leliana nodded. “Josephine and I are at odds on whether or not we should give your sister this letter.”

Your sister. Always your sister, never her name. Just as they were both always addressed as Inquisitor or Herald or Your Worship.

“I will tell her about it when she returns,” Cari decided. “But the choice will be hers.”

She shook her head. “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe she will choose to read it.”

And if asked, Cari would encourage her not to.

“I will have it sent to your desk. We’re expecting her return early tomorrow afternoon.”

That didn’t give her much time, then, but once it was done, she didn’t suppose the rest would matter.

“Thank you.” Cari stared down into the courtyard, watched templars and soldiers and mages carry on in the daily life of the keep, all seeming, at least from that small distance, to be possessed only of the spirit of cooperation. “Do you think it will ever be this way anywhere else?”

Leliana laughed softly. “I don’t think it’s quite so here, if we’re being honest.” She reached up to straighten her hood. “But I believe it is possible, yes. So much has already been achieved with a mage as our leader and the templars as allies.”

“It has,” Cari agreed, letting the wind catch her sigh and cast it toward the mountains. “Any word from Ser Barris at Clifton?”

“Nothing beyond the usual reports,” Leliana wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Your sister finds a way to give the entire order some measure of autonomy and they name the fortress something so uninspiring.”

She tsked and Cari grinned. “They let her name it.”

“They…what?”

The look of exasperation on the spymaster’s face had Cari giggling. Very little seemed to surprise Leliana, but Essa managed it regularly enough.

“You can blame her for the lack of imagination.”

“I suppose we should be grateful she didn’t name it after a horse,” Leliana sighed.

“Or have reason to,” Cari agreed more soberly.

“Indeed.”

“Would you like the latest gossip from Redcliffe?” Leliana asked, so innocently that Cari knew she absolutely wanted the latest gossip from Redcliffe.

“Yes, please.”

Leliana’s smile warmed, for a moment nearly incandescent with merriment. “I’ll have the report sent to your desk as well.”

They stood in companionable silence for some time, the sharp breeze teasing Cari’s hair from carefully pinned twists.

“About time for a trim,” she mused. Essa’s hair grew fast, but not as fast as Cari’s.  They had compromised on a length somewhere between their preferences, but Cari still had her by a few inches.

Leliana nodded. “There’s more.”

Of course there was. Cari turned back to face Leliana, hands clasped lightly behind her back, shoulders wide and strong, feet slightly apart.

“Better,” Leliana commented, a smirk teasing her lips. “Though you might want to plant your feet for this one.”

She didn’t give Cari long to worry, though Cari wasn’t certain the alternative was better.

“Lady Miranda Trevelyan arrived at the Winter Palace last week. She is eagerly awaiting your reunion and hopes that you will bring your sister with you.”

“She…what?”

Leliana nodded, sympathy clear her eyes.

“Oh, fuck me,” Cari’s mouth dropped open, the curse rolling out to her and Leliana’s mutual astonishment. “I need a drink.”

*

“You sure about this?” Stitches asked as they started up the dim staircase to the Inquisitor’s quarters.

“No,” Krem huffed out something that might have passed for a laugh. “But she is, and even the chief says he sees the merit in it.”

“Damn shame too,” the healer sighed. “Pretty face.”

“Don’t figure a crooked nose is going to change that,” Krem muttered, more to himself than his comrade.

Stitches grunted, a single syllable that conveyed layers of skepticism and would have stood Grim proud.

“Let’s get this over with.”

They made more noise than necessary as they proceeded up the stairs, boots loud, armor clanking, voices lifted robustly enough to announce them well ahead of their presence, but still Krem and Stitches managed to catch Cari and Sera unawares. For a moment, all he could do was stare through the lengthening shadows as twilight crept across the large room, shades of violet and smoke unimpeded by a low burning fire and too few candles. Cari sat on the floor, bare feet precariously close to the hearth, a mostly empty crystal glass in one fist, a hand mirror clutched in the other.  

Until that moment, Krem had never seen fury in the gloaming of her gaze, but she was angry now.

“Hold ‘er steady,” Sera ordered helpfully as she leaned across the heath rug to top off Cari’s drink. “Unless yer done.”

“Not done,” Cari slurred, and she had no plans for stopping.

If she’d any doubts about the necessity of having her nose broken, they were gone now. It was one thing to tempt blasphemy while attempting to fool the court of Orlais, quite another to expect her own mother not to recognize her, and Essa certainly wasn’t going to be able to pass as Cari. That worry, at least, was one easily enough solved, and Leliana had assured her that Lady Montilyet had already begun composing a proper apology expressing their regrets that Lady Carilyna Trevelyan would not be in attendance. Her skills were required at Skyhold with so many away.

“Oh, I think you’re done,” Krem called from the stairs.

Cari glared into the shadows, could barely make out the silhouettes of Krem and Stitches.

“Have you two been drinking all afternoon?” he asked, nodding toward the lit candles. Stitches took the slim taper from its holder, began lighting candles and lamps around the room until dusk fell back against the lonely edges of stone.

“Perhaps,” Cari said, feeling surly. Was this what Essa felt like all the time? “Haven’t you heard the news?”

“No,” Krem answered, more patiently than she knew she deserved. “What news?”

“Inky’s mum is waiting for her.” Sera rolled onto her back on the floor, head propped on Cari’s leg with a familiarity that would have made Krem smile if it hadn’t required too many bottles of expensive booze for the pair to accomplish.

He crouched down beside them, began slowly nudging the bottle away from Sera. “What’s that now?” 

Cari nodded, watched him waver up and down before her bleary eyes. Her lips were numb, fingers only sort of able to recognize the cool stone—no, wait, she was still holding the blighted mirror. She dropped it to the floor with a clatter, could only hope the glass didn’t break.

“My mother,” she informed him, annoyed with the cool, prim rise of her voice. “Has procured an invitation to the Winter Palace.”

Cari tipped back her drink, nearly choked when the whiskey hit her nose. She had already forgotten that Sera had refilled her glass.

“A feat that took the Inquisition how long? How much blood? And yet, for Miranda Trevelyan it was but the work of a moment.”

“She could have done that for us, you know.” She waved her glass toward the fire, whiskey spilling bright and sticky across her fingers. “I have to fool my own blighted mother, Krem.”

“That’s enough of that, my lady.” He took the glass from her sliding grip, pulled her hand close to his torso, and wiped the alcohol on his shirt.

Cari grabbed at the stained linen hem, knuckles grazing his side. “You’re not wearing your armor?”

“No.” He passed the glass to Stitches and gently pried her fingers from his clothes. Her hands were too warm, and that really was about the last thing in the world he needed to be thinking about then. “I’m wearing something easier to clean.”

“Oh.” She stared at him for a heartbeat too long. “Yes, of course.”

Cari stumbled to her feet, the sudden, graceless movement knocking Sera’s head to the floor with a thud. A string of expletives assured them all that the rogue was alright; she promised retribution with arrows just as soon she could walk.

“I need something I can get blood on.” Cari frowned, tried to think of something that would do. She had her gowns of course, but nothing old or faded or at any other state close to being discarded. Most of Essa’s clothes would count, but she couldn’t--

“Brought you an old shirt,” Krem said tugging her to a lurching halt. For a moment, Cari stared at him, eyes wide and clouded with the promise of tears.

“Thank you,” Cari whispered, suddenly touched. “You’re a kind man, Cremisius Aclassi.”

Stitches snorted. Cari didn’t seem to notice his or Sera’s laughter, instead she stared at Krem, one trembling breath after another all that seemed to be keeping her from crying.

“And you,” Krem said, ushering her toward the dressing room. “Aren’t nearly as fun a drunk as your sister.”

Cari glowered at the floor as she tripped along beside him. “Say her name.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Or mine.” There was a hard edge to her voice, fury coming as unexpectedly as her tears. “I’m tired of this ‘sister’ nonsense. Soon there won’t be a Cari or an Essa, just ‘Inquisitor Trevelyan’.”

Her voice dropped into something deep and authoritative and uncharacteristically mocking.

“You break character when you drink too much,” he said mildly.

Cari stumbled to a halt, spun to level an icy glare at him.

“I’m angry,” she declared unnecessarily. “Shouldn’t that make me more like her, not less?”

“Maybe.” He caught her by the arms, squared her feet on the rug before him, measured the distance between them. “But when she’s drunk, her worship just wants to kiss everyone. You, however, are spoiling for a fight.”

It shouldn’t have shocked him that she was an angry drunk. Cari held back her temper when she was sober, just like Essa held back her love. He wondered if Cari feared the potential devastation to others more, or to herself.

“Perhaps I am.” She lifted her chin, fists coming to rest on her hips.

“Fight _me_!” Sera crowed from across the room.

Krem sighed, made an impulsive decision that he could only hope he wouldn’t regret.

“Do you have more than one of those beige uniforms?”

Cari looked down at her jacket, pursed her lips in thought. “At least two—“

Krem’s fist caught her square in the nose, the impact so sudden, so sharp that Cari’s mind staggered along with her feet, failed to find an apt comparison even as she fought to maintain her stance. There was a sickly crunch, an incandescent flare of pain. She clapped one cupped hand over her nose not even knowing how to begin to stop the blood; it hurt too much to apply pressure. Her other hand lashed out in reflex, the heel of her palm struck hard against Krem’s nose even as she wavered on her feet. She felt the cartlidge shift, the impact reverberating through her arm, settling in her elbow with a sick sting. Through a haze of pain, blood, and alcohol, she saw the astonishment on his face, heard a quiet Tevinter curse, even as the room pitched around her.

“Nice shot, Cari!” 

Sera’s exultant shout demanded some sort of reply, but Cari could only hold onto her face as the floor rushed up to meet her. Krem caught her elbow, kept her upright even as he covered his nose with his other hand and bellowed for Stitches.

“Essa’s going to kill you.” Sera’s cheerful singsong was the last thing Cari heard.

*

The sun was high overhead when Cullen and Essa returned to Skyhold. A bright and cloudless afternoon arched above them, the edge of autumn singed with wood smoke. When they had met up with some of the Chargers along the road that morning, they had hoped to ride into the keep along with the whole cheerful, noisy party, but found instead that the bridge was a bustle of wagons and wains piled high with the first of the final harvest. Turnips, cabbages, pumpkins, and squash gleamed in great mountains of color as stout ponies and druffalo marched in a slow, stately parade across the smooth stone while Skyhold’s bells rang out as in celebration of a great victory.

“Are these all from Smoke’s Valley?” Essa asked, undisguised awe in her voice as she rode up alongside a cart filled precariously high with purple cabbages.

“They are at that, miss,” the driver replied. His grin split wide beneath eyes the color of the sky above the Frostbacks. “This is the just the first haul though. Herald planted ‘em herself. There’s enough coming to feed most of her army for the winter,” he added gesturing back to the line of wagons behind them, pride etched into every line of his face.

The boast might have been somewhat of an exaggeration, but not enough to take away from the accomplishment. Essa turned to Cullen, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. She may have spent the summer in the Western Approach casting nightmares and death around her feet, but she had first sown life in the Frostbacks, and she would help feed her people. There was more peace in that than anyone could know.

Cullen leaned over in the saddle to catch one of her shaking hands in his. Essa squeezed his fingers hard, smile quaking with too many emotions.

“Grain’ll come last once it’s dried and milled,” the farmer continued, oblivious to her struggle for composure. He nodded toward the open portcullis. “She’s taking the tally herself this morning.”

“Who’s that?” Cullen asked when Essa couldn’t muster words.

“The Herald. She’s been in the yard since first light, shaking dirty hands, thanking the likes of us for our service.”

Essa pulled the hood of her cloak more closely around her face, fingers clinging tightly to Cullen’s. Cari knew what their endeavors in the valley had meant to her.

“She’s good people,” Essa said roughly.

“That she is,” the driver agreed. “She wasn’t expecting us til later in the week. I heard from Old Earl that she ran out in her dressing gown before the Lady Ambassador herded her back inside.”

Cullen chuckled. “That sounds like the Inquisitor.”

“You know her then?” the farmer asked in surprise.

Essa shot Cullen a sharp look as he answered, face remarkably straight but for honey-bright eyes.

“In passing.”

The courtyard was packed from wall to wall with more people than Essa could ever recall. The stones echoed with a buzz of voices, a tangle of rumor and accolade, devotion and pride for the Herald’s Harvest.   _Did you hear…? …oh, yes. She killed two dozen…planted these herself, she did...shared a water pail…carried my daughter home on her back…Gilly saw her hauling manure, no blisters…hands like a fighter….I say she’d make a fair farmer…_

“Is it all true?” Cullen asked, lips hitching up into a smile once they finally broke off from the masses and attempted to make their way toward the stable.

“Probably?” Essa shrugged. “I didn’t hear what the herald was supposed to have killed two dozen of so I can’t be sure.”

“But the…hauling?”

She laughed. “That’s what stuck with you? Of course I carried buckets with everyone else.” Essa shook her head. “It’s very odd the things that impress you, C--ser.”

There were soldiers among the farmers, efficiently directing the crowds, their uniforms spotless, and carriages impeccable. She didn’t think they were yet ready to break their cover.

“I suppose we’re both fortunate then,” he replied drily.

Essa snickered. “I suppose.”

She caught only a glimpse of her sister as they were asked their destination, then herded through toward the stable. Cari was standing in the middle of what had once been their infirmary, and if she did not possess the fullness of Essa’s overwhelming pride at the parade of vegetables, none would know. She was indeed shaking every dirty hand that waited for the honor, face smiling with undeniable warmth…

Above a very bandaged nose.

She waited until they were safely in the barn before she unleashed a barrage of questions on poor Blackwall and Master Dennet. Cullen listened with barely concealed amusement, moving without rush through what had become a pleasant routine of tending to Geri and Cacique, as the other men caught Essa up on all but the gossip she was most concerned with hearing. For his part, Cullen was more impressed with Blackwall’s valiant refusal not to mention the week’s worth of beard on Cullen’s face. Cari’s nose had seemed a foregone conclusion once she committed to her subterfuge.

“Alright,” Essa said finally, once Geri was munching contentedly at his grain. “Someone tell me what in the Void happened to my sister’s nose.”

*

Cullen hid his smirk behind a cup of strong tea. This wasn’t quite how he had expected their first afternoon back at Skyhold to go, but as Leliana, Cassandra, and Josephine had thought it would be fun to essentially ambush them the moment he and Essa walked into his office, he was going to enjoy momentarily throwing everyone off their game. It was rare that anyone surprised Leliana, rarer still that Josephine was rendered speechless but, for one reason or another, his and Essa’s return had done just that. He was inclined to blame the beard, but the gimlet look in Leliana’s eyes suggested he might not be on the right path, and that he was safer where he was.

He did not doubt that he would hear about it later, just as he knew that at some point he would have to answer for Redcliffe. But not, he thought, watching Cari and Essa stare slack jawed across his desk at one another. Not quite yet.

Cari had paused in her duties as soon as word reached her that Essa had arrived. The silence that stretched, taut and heavy between them, had begun to rival the endless vigils from his early training days, before his mind had found the discipline it needed and his body could only protest—loudly and constantly—the unnatural stillness he had forced upon it. He was not, he saw, the only person struggling to wait them out. Josephine swayed listlessly on her feet, dark gaze darting back and forth between the pair.

“Ladies…?”

The gentle prompt released them from their unnatural stillness, each seeming to return to her own thoughts with a splendid gasp of breaths taken together. A cacophony of words tumbled in disbelieving unison. Essa’s shrill disbelief was twice as loud as Cari’s hard fought composure.

“You broke your fucking nose!” Essa demanded.

“You eloped?”

The second descent of silence was somehow more deafening than the first.

“What?” Essa stared at Cari, clearly certain that her sister had lost her mind. She jerked her chin at Cari’s face. “Did Krem addle your brain when he punched you in the face?”

“How did you know it was Krem?” Cari demanded, not bothering to answer the question.

“Ha!” Essa shouted. “I knew it!”

“Knew what?” 

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Essa returned, folding her arms across her chest. “In here.”

She glanced pointedly at their captivated audience. Only Josephine was polite enough to stare down at her notes, to pretend that she was interested in anything beyond the unfolding spectacle.

“No,” Cari’s hands settled on her hips, and the jut of her jaw had the cant of her sister’s if not the sharp angle. “I want you to tell me what in Andraste’s name made you two think that running off and getting married was even remotely sensible right now?”

Just tell her, Cullen thought staring furiously in Essa’s direction, but he watched her temper catch behind her eyes and could only hide behind his hand.

“Are you really going to lecture me on sensible when you let someone break your nose?!”

“You got married!” Cari finally shouted. Cullen thought it might have been the first time he had ever heard her raise her voice.

“Marriage isn’t always permanent!” Essa hollered back. She lifted one hand, pointed imperiously at Cari’s face and the impressive mottling of bruises and bandages between her eyes. “That is!”

Cari drew herself up, smoothing her jacket with shaking hands, but they never heard whatever she might have said.

“What do you mean isn’t always permanent?” The question was out before Cullen realized he had formed the words in his head, much less allowed them past his lips. Maker preserve him! Now he was getting defensive about an imaginary marriage that he hadn’t been comfortable with to start with.

“Do you want to have this conversation now?” Essa turned to him in utter astonishment. “Really?”

Of course he didn’t. This entire farce had gone on long enough. Everything—well except Cari’s nose—could be cleared up in just a few words.

“I don’t know,” Cullen replied, shocked again by his traitorous tongue. “Maybe we should.”

If Leliana giggled--and he could just _feel_  how much she wanted to--he was going to make the rogue kill him.

“Enough!” Cassandra snapped, disapproving gaze storming between the three of them. “Clearly you have all lost your minds.”

She glared at Essa, and Cullen couldn’t help wondering why she thought Essa was the one to confront first.

“Did you elope?”

Essa rolled her eyes. “Of course not,” she huffed, nose lifting in the air as she scowled across the table at her sister. “Don’t be absurd.”

“What do you mean ‘absurd’?” Cullen closed his eyes rather than face his own folly.

The noise that Cassandra made was familiar. Cullen was almost positive he had heard his mother make the same when he and his siblings descended into their most exasperating.

“Not the time,” she ordered. “Now...”

Cassandra nodded once, succinctly, shifting her stare to Cari. “Your sister remains unwed, and the mischief at Redcliff easily forgotten.”

Leliana giggled then, and Cullen groaned as all eyes turned to her. “I do not think it will be so easily forgotten,” she disagreed. “But perhaps now is not the proper time--”

“There is not, nor will there be, a proper time.” Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose and retreated quickly and unashamedly behind his duty. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me.”

He ushered them toward the nearest door, very deliberately avoided Cassandra’s disgruntled frown and Leliana’s knowing smile by staring just above their heads.

“You coward,” Essa accused, lips curving broadly.

“Tactical withdrawal,” Cullen corrected, bending swiftly to drop a kiss on her temple.

As he closed the door between them, he could hear her laughter bouncing bright and unfettered against the fortress walls.


	3. Honorable Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winter Palace doesn't care about the best or worst intentions. Cari finally meets Diarmont's mother and reunites with her own.

Krem reached across the space between their horses, catching her hand before Cari could lift her fingers—again—to the aching, now crooked, bridge of her nose.

“It’s still there.”

His gauntlets rubbed slightly against the nap of her gloves and Cari pulled her hand reluctantly away. _Too young, too young, too young_. She was on her fourth mantra, and this one was finally one  she believed. The others—ridiculous notions of class and culture that sounded far too much like her mother—had been too easily discarded by her foolish, romantic heart, but this one was painfully true. They all forgot that she was Essa’s _older_ sister. By six long years.

“You should have let the healers…” she waved one hand to indicate Krem’s face.

Dorian had worked on Cari’s nose for most of the week before their departure for Halamshiral, healing skin and cartilage and repeating, every. single. time, a rather impressive lecture about desecrating works of art. Her bruises had faded, skin as sun-dark and freckled and foreign as before, but Krem still bore the burden of his own brilliance, and proudly at that. Cari Trevelyan could indeed defend herself in a fight.

“And ruin this for the chief?” Krem shook his head, smile crinkling on one side as he leaned away amid a creak of leather and scale. “Not on my life. I haven’t seen him so puffed up over anyone since—“

He bit the words back abruptly, glanced toward the far horizon, cheeks shifting dark beneath the sickly yellow of impact’s fading.

“Since when?” Cari asked, lifting her hand to shade her eyes against the brutal slant of autumn light. “Are you blushing, Krem?”

“Apologies, my lady. You make it easy to forget myself.” He glanced ahead to where most of the rest of the Chargers rode, voices lifted in bawdy songs that she knew Essa loved. “It’s a story you wouldn’t want to hear. I should get back to the others.”

He urged his horse into a springing trot, steel shoes striking brightly against the stones of the Imperial Highway while truth wasted on her tongue, fell like so many undared wishes to the ground beneath her feet. She wanted to hear all of his stories, simply because they belonged to him, wanted to know what could make his eyes go warmer than his cheeks, spill like love into the laughter that edged his voice. Cari watched him ride away, stared so long into the glinting ricochet of sunlight against his armor that Krem’s image fell into dark reverse, spots swimming across her vision like the seething violet of Dorian’s necromancy.

“Inquisitor?”

The concern in Cullen’s address called her back with a jolt.

“I’m sorry, Commander, you were saying?”

“I—ah, I wasn’t. actually.” He reached up to rub the back of his neck, turned his gaze politely to the road ahead. “You seemed to be…your thoughts did not seem pleasant.”

They were and they weren’t, but Cari could not see sharing the burden with him. They carried too many between them as it was and she was grateful for his continued commiseration.

“They weren’t.” Cari nodded in agreement. “Thank you for calling me from them.”

Cacique, Essa’s warhorse who had rather surprisingly adopted Cullen for his own, sidled closer to Cari’s mare, teeth bared toward her knee.

“No, ser.” Cari kicked him lightly with the toe of her boot as Cullen tugged sharply on the reins.

“He probably wasn’t the best choice for a diplomatic excursion,” Cullen admitted, sliding one hand beneath the thick braid of Cacique’s mane.

“I don’t recall that you had much choice,” Cari reassured him.

Essa and Geri had ridden out of Skyhold with Josephine and small party the morning before the rest of them. The warhorse’s displeasure at having been left behind had resulted in the loss of two stall walls, and nearly cost one of the stable boys his arm. Dennet had told Cullen in no uncertain terms that he could either take the horse himself, or _he_ could explain to her worship why the mean bastard was missing.

“No,” Cullen agreed. “I suppose I didn’t.”

He fidgeted with his reins. “How are you holding up? You’re the only one here you doesn’t look as if you’re riding to a state funeral.”

The observation shocked a laugh from her and the sound tore from her throat, a shaking, fledgling creature that finally took flight toward the clouds.

“Then my mask is better than I thought, Commander.”

Cullen chuckled. “It’s not _that_ good.”

*

She brooded over his smug retort for the better part of the afternoon. If she couldn’t fool Cullen, how on earth was she supposed to fool her mother, the woman who had given birth to her, raised her, wiped tears from her cheeks when she suffered her first heartbreak?

“How is it that you always know?” Cari finally asked in frustration.

It was their last night on the road, and nearly everyone was elbow deep in some sort of revelry, the last frantic exaltation before the looming “battle of Halamshiral.” Well, everyone but her, the watch, and Cullen. Cari had learned her lesson about over-indulging and with the city and the performance of her life looming, now was certainly not the time. She had not been at Adamant, but Varric’s dry observation suggested that most of those attending dreaded the Winter Palace more than the desert siege.

She was terrified of letting them all down. 

“You mean aside from the obvious things you wouldn’t want to hear, and I wouldn’t tell you anyway?” Cullen asked, lifting his tankard and toasting her silently before he drank.

“Yes! Please.” She blushed immediately and prettily, cheeks remaining bright as she clunked down across the fire from him, sprawled her legs over the grass.

Cullen’s upper lip curled in a smirk, but he said nothing at first, simply waited for her to get comfortable. He hadn’t given an order for the last half hour. Their small retinue of guards was made up mostly of the Chargers and thus as well organized. His amber eyes were bored, listless in the firelight. For reasons she couldn’t explain, that made Cari nervous.

“For one thing,” he said, smiling affably enough. “It takes considerably more than that to make her blush.”

“I know that.” Cari lifted her nose and glared at him. “And I’ve gotten better, you will forgive me if the personal lives of those—“

She stopped her affronted rant and sat frowning at him, arms crossed beneath her breasts.

“Better,” he nodded. “The biggest problem you have”—aside from the swagger he didn’t think Cari would ever truly master—“is that you see too much.”

“I…what?”

“Oh, here we go,” Cassandra said, joining them at the fire. She passed Cari a bowl of stew she hadn’t asked for, gave her a mulish glare to indicate that she should eat no matter her appetite.

“Your eyes are constantly darting,” Cullen continued without mercy, ignoring Cassandra’s exasperated sigh. “Though I’ll give you that you’re subtle with it. Still you know where everyone is at any given moment. Your sister doesn’t care.”

“She…what?” Cari scowled. It was an impressive likeness.

“She knows her exits, and she always sits with her back to a corner, flanked by those she trusts. I’d wager you can tell me what everyone in camp is wearing and drinking.”

“But of course she can.”

Leliana’s voice reached them before she drew too close to the fire. It was a kindness Cari had tried hard to adopt. Not startling the warrior types was good sense. Leliana nudged Cullen with her foot as she settled down on the empty camp stool beside him, bullying him with deft grace and soft words into accepting a hunk of bread and bowl of stew.

Cullen shook his head. “If she were here, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell you what I’m wearing.” He stared into the deepening blue of the evening. “She reads a room the way a mabari does. Not a person.  She listens more than she watches, has an _uncanny_ sense of smell.”

They all laughed and Cullen with them. It was the first time she had seen the tension around his eyes relax since Essa departed ahead of them, dressed like an Orlesian courtier.

“She relies on intuition more than observation.”

It was maddening, especially in a fight.

“So you’re saying it’s impossible,” Cari sighed.

“I’m saying you need to stop worrying about convincing anyone of who you are, and worry only about the few you need to convince of who you aren’t,” he said with admirable vagueness. “No one would believe she was real anyway.”

*

The Winter Palace glittered like a dragon’s hoard. Silks and velvets gleamed like jewels; jewels twinkled like stars. Myriad colors rich and dreaming spun darkly beneath mage light and candle flames, were flung sharp to glittering by crystal chandeliers and mirrors polished diamond bright. There were no obfuscating shadows, no soft edges or forgiveness to be found in the crowded halls. People hid instead behind masks, unyielding metal forged into false expressions of polite disinterest. They were weapons, Cari said, not shields, and after a week of being unable to mark the faces of his enemies, Cullen was inclined to agree with her.

He was also perilously close to losing his temper.

The light itself was enough to drive his unceasing headache past all tolerance, but then there was the endless noise. Not the honest clash or shouts from the training yard, nor the waves of rhythm that rolled from the war engine of a marching army. Every sound was an untuned lyre, a broken song. The sharp discordant rise and fall of elaborate speech that ultimately said nothing. Touch was a casual assault among the throngs. Caresses, pinches, unasked for and unwelcome. Sometimes an offer, sometimes a question, but always a bluff uncalled. They wanted to see him flinch, wanted to test the rigid planes of the mask his face had become. He had recited the Chant so many times in his head that the words had begun to lose their meaning, rattling cold and alien inside his aching skull.

“Commander?”

Cullen’s overwrought nerves had long been scraped raw, until he feared he stood at the end of the discipline upon which he had so long taken refuge. He startled when her fingertips brushed his elbow, managed to catch the truth of her concern beneath the false veneer of her sister’s cadence. Her perfume reached him and Cullen took a deep breath of violets and frost, a clean, faint scent that somehow pushed back the sweet deaths of late summer roses that lingered, thick and cloying over the pulse of nearly every woman there.

“I apologize for stealing you away you’re your admirers…” A half-dozen titters babbled from the faceless crowd around him. “But would you walk with me a moment?”

“Of course, your worship.”

He offered Cari his arm, was surprised to find her fingers just slightly trembling as they lay lightly against the vibrant red of his sleeve. She was silent as she led without appearing to, sliding through those gathered with the grace and persistence of a canyon stream. She smiled and nodded to those they passed, inclined her head with a nobility he had only ever seen Essa show to horses.

“Ah,” she sighed softly, as they left the crowds behind. “That’s better.”

“What is?” he asked absently.

“You almost smiled.” She patted his arm. “I don’t suppose I have to ask what you were thinking of.”

She didn’t say “who.” Cari was very good at keeping secrets. Before coming to Halamshiral, Cullen would have thought he didn’t have any, but here, everything he cared about was something to keep close. Unspoken. Unsullied.

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do.”

He didn’t ask how she was holding up, though wanted to. To do so would suggest weakness to prying ears and he would do nothing to jeopardize Cari’s standing with the court. She had exceeded all expectations in the seven days since they arrived at the Winter Palace, ferreting out information and garnering approval with equal subtlety despite the subtle whispers of Madamae Baudin and her mother.

Through an inspiring feat of diplomacy, Josephine had managed to delay the announcement of the Inquisitor’s arrival for five days. Cari had so far avoided seeing her mother. It was the sort of off-hand disrespect Miranda Trevelyan would expect from her youngest, and enjoy lamenting to any who might indulge her.

They were close to finding the assassin, she had assured them that morning, though she was still not comfortable with choosing between Gaspard and Celene. He could hardly blame her. Essa had complained more than once of being the deciding vote between the four of them.

Cari turned down a quiet corridor, one that was by all appearances empty. Not that Cullen often trusted appearances here.

“I’ve a favor to ask of you, Commander,” she murmured, voiced pitched just beneath the deliberately heavy tread of her boots.

“Of course.”

Just ahead a mirrored panel hid a servants’ hall. The narrow passage ran to the wing that the Inquisition had been given and they had made use of it more than once in their time here. Cari stopped before the polished glass, made a show of admiring their reflection.

“Diar’s mother arrived this morning,” she said softly. “And I’m to have a private dinner with my mother in about half an hour.”

This he knew, Sera had been tasked with keeping Essa well and truly occupied until Lady Trevelyan departed the Inquisition’s villa.

“I’m afraid a rather delicate matter—“

“There’s nothing delicate about our Inquisitor,” Cullen interrupted reassuringly.

Maker’s breath! She must be worried if she was so close to breaking character. It was the first slip he had seen of the week.

Cari smiled. “Of course. I’ll be blunt.” Her fingers tightened against his arm. “There are quite a few rumors regarding the relationship between the Inquisitor and a certain handsome Commander.”

Cullen flushed and Cari grinned, for once bearing a resemblance to her sister that was genuine rather than affected.

“Oh, you’ve no one but yourself to blame,” she teased quietly, drawing him to a halt beside a statuary alcove. “And as it is no one’s business, truly, such gossip can be dismissed as exactly that. I just…need to know if they should be before I face two women who are very, _very_ interested in knowing the truth.”

“Neither of whom deserve it,” Cullen replied shortly.

Cari nodded, worries rising like mist in her eyes.

“Why don’t I go with you?” he asked.

“What?”

The shocked voice in his head bore a remarkable similarity to Cari’s.

“Invite them both to dinner.”

“At the same time?” He had never heard Cari shriek, but she was perilously close now.

Cullen tried not to smirk. The uncharacteristic impulse settled into the promise of a sound strategy. “Yes, get it over and done with. I can join you, if you would like. They can make of us whatever they may.”

“You—“ Cari covered her mouth with her hand eyes bright above her fingers as she mumbled,  “You think that’s wise?”

“Wisdom and the Winter Palace are not well acquainted.” His smile was fleeting. “But yes. I should probably meet them anyway.”

*

She had chosen to wear her uniform to dinner. It was the least Cari-like thing to do, and as Essa would have showed up not wearing shoes in some sort of linen sack, portraying the Inquisitor in Halamshiral was much less about "what would Essa do?” and more about what was best for the Inquisition and thus what would make Cari feel the strongest in her subterfuge. She had braided her hair into a tight coronet, just behind her hairline. The severe style exaggerated her crooked nose, the too sharp set of her features, and Maker, preserve her, if she didn’t look enough like Essa to be her twin.

As mistakes went, this was hardly the diplomatic nightmare Essa would have created in her place. At least, that’s what Cari told herself, over and over again as she cut her food into too small bites and tried not to glance—again—through the delicate candlelight at the door. Cullen was late, which in and of itself would have been alarming on any given day, but as she was currently wearing her approximation of her sister’s face while dining with her mother and Diarmont Stanhope’s mother, Cari was all but sweating inside her uniform.

Cari glimpsed her reflection in the large, gilt framed mirror that hung over the equally ornate, golden hued buffet that dominated one wall of the dining room. _Breathe_ , she reminded herself for what had to be the thousandth time since her mother first stared through her eyes and recognized nothing of either of her children. _You look so like your sister._ They had been the first words Miranda gave her followed by a wistful sigh. _It’s true what they say, beauty does stand but on the edge of a knife’s blade._ As if the sun and a broken nose had ruined her completely. As if Essa wasn’t just as beautiful as Cari.

When she reached to pat Cari’s cheek, her recoil had been genuine.

Still, it was a heady, giddy experience looking into her mother’s face and seeing a stranger—no, worse—seeing everything that the woman had given to Essa. There was an impossible remove in Miranda’s carriage, and Cari couldn’t quite reconcile the woman who had raised her, who had manipulated her with love and duty for years, with the remote figure more interested in the Inquisition’s Winter Palace accommodations than actually interacting with her youngest child. Cullen was right, Miranda Trevelyan knew nothing of Essa. And she cared even less.

So far, dinner had been a wretchedly polite affair, cut crystal and fine tableware gleaming amid excessive silver and the polite volleys of insults as carefully crafted as the complicated courses. There was no music to distract from the cultured clip of cool tones, and she missed Fin’s lap harp and Maryden’s lute. Josephine had often asked one or both of them play for dinners at Skyhold. The silence made of dinner something of a challenge in gentility, each woman doing her best to eat without making more noise than was proper with fork and knife and spoon on eggshell porcelain. Cari had lost count of her own mistakes.

Her mother was winning.

“You must forgive me for intruding, Madame.” Miranda’s voice was gentle, barbs hidden beneath finely spun sugar. “I have not seen my daughter in so long, I’m afraid that I could not wait another evening.”

It was well done, or would have been if she were at all herself and not supposed to be her sister. The faint rebuttal for not running immediately to greet her mother would have been wasted on Essa. Cari wondered how long she had been waiting to slip that sting in, and where she was going with it.

Miranda Trevelyan was every bit as intimidating as Cari remembered, dressed in the absolute height of Orlesian fashion. Of course. Cari had never seen her mother in anything but the best of what was appropriate.  The blue silk taffeta was just a few shades lighter than that which the empress currently favored. Only just too pale unable to give offense, but flattering her mother’s coloring with the same grace. She wore accents of platinum instead of gold, lacey curls and twists at her throat and gleaming in the artful coils of her fading blonde hair. The cold metal failed to soften the steely gaze she had given both her daughters.

A gaze which she now leveled across the table.

“But of course,” Nathalie replied, her soft accent making of the words the fairest insult. “The love between a mother and her child should never be disregarded.”

_Ah, yes, madame. Remind us—again—that Essa killed your son. You know, the one who hated you._

“And yet so many mothers do,” Miranda agreed easily, unaware or uncaring of her own hypocrisy.  So far the meeting between the pair had not disappointed. Cari had never seen two people insult one another so prettily and abstrusely. “Tragic that some children are forced to flee entire countries to escape their mother’s love.”

“How fortunate some need go no farther than the stable.”

Cari choked on her wine. Oh, dear merciful Andraste. They had been exchanging cordial unpleasantness for over an hour, but that one, she realized, coughing violently, that one was the one that might just kill her.

“My dear?” Nathalie turned to her in apparent concern, but Cari was past the patience of even pretending she was fooled.

Nathalie Baudin was a small woman with cruel green eyes far colder than the impassively sculpted mask that covered three quarters of her face and a rigid dress of beaded emerald that Cari suspected created more than emphasized her actual body shape. Cari had hated her upon sight and the feeling was undoubtedly mutual. Upon arriving at Cari’s door, she had wrinkled her nose in distaste to find the Inquisition did not utilize the servants provided. _How…eccentric of you to do the work of those beneath your station._ She had followed with a thinly veiled rebuff to Cari’s looks, shocked at how unlike her portraits she appeared. _But of course, such is portraiture, no? We would not pay for a work that did not…flatter._

“I’m sorry.” But even to her the apology sounded false.

How much she had changed since arriving at Skyhold in the spring. Cari could only marvel as the realization sank in. There was a time when such a coarse dismissal would have never have slipped past her lips, much less better muttered through her teeth.

“It is we who should apologize to you, Inquisitor,” Madame Baudin simpered prettily. “We have kept the conversation between ourselves for too long.”

They had, but she truly hadn’t mattered. It was not as if she had been interested in exchanging small talk and smaller thought with two of their kind. Her sister was rubbing off on her, Cari thought with a smile. Or maybe the realities of Essa’s station—their now shared station—had finally eclipsed her own personal worries.

“Think nothing of it, please.” Cari dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, placed it back in her lap. She smiled. “Listening to the two of you, I quite lost all track of time.”

She wanted to snicker, because Maker it was true, but not in the way either of them would take such a declaration.  She stood, straightening her jacket, fingers lingering on the almost sharp edges of steel buttons. She pressed the pad of one thumb hard against a heavy point, watched blood bead brighter than the crimson of her jacket. It was a dangerous kindness, one meant to wound and remind that every button had been cast from the swords of Inquisition soldiers who fell at Adamant. A bit of brilliance on Cullen’s part, a careful forging of patriotism and propaganda, though he had certainly not cared for that last choice of word, especially when it had been Essa who uttered it.

Cari brought her thumb to her mouth, laved the small pinprick with her tongue.

“I want to thank both of you for agreeing to join me together this evening. I have such little time for nonessential engagements this trip.” She paused long enough to let the not so subtle affront the sink in. “But I wanted to thank you personally, Madame Baudin, for your letter. My sister often expressed her regret to me for having returned Diar’s medallion to you. I’m afraid she let our own mother’s sympathy for your loss sway her. Lady Trevelyan also lost a son that day.”

“You will forgive me, Inquisitor, but I do not know what you are referring to?” She sounded properly confused, no hint of offense to give the truth away.

“A gift intended to hurt,” Cari said quietly, temper burning like sudden frost as she met Nathalie’s stare. She reached up to pull the medallion from beneath her jacket, left a smear of blood on the chain. “But you returned to me something I value greatly so I will ignore the intent.”

She rose from her seat. “Madame, I will admit that I was incredibly nervous about meeting you, and angry too, but I see now what Diar meant when he claimed so many similarities between you and my mother. The past hour has been one of the most enlightening of my life.”

While Nathalie floundered, finally able to twitter softly in insult, Cari turned to Miranda.

“Mother,” she tipped her head to one side, stared through a particularly long candle flame. “Why did you want to see me? Beyond of course what I am sure such a meeting will do for your social status. I have not laid eyes on you since the week before the Grand Tourney, nearly twelve years ago, not heard anything of you beyond the pair of petitions you sent to the Knight Commander of Ostwick tower begging first for my execution and then—when your request was denied—for my tranquility.”

Miranda drew herself up, eyes flashing with the foundation of temper Essa had not inherited from their father.

“I suppose,” Cari added, as an afterthought. “That I do owe you a thank you for my books.”

Her mother gaped at her but whatever fury she might have returned was interrupted by Cullen’s abrupt entrance.

“Inquisitor, you’re needed.” She couldn’t read the tawny shadows of his eyes and Cari’s stomach sank, bravado wrecked on shoals of dread.

 “Of course.”

She was nearly out the door when her mother called after her a piteous catch in her throat. “Send your sister home.”

Cari’s feet tangled and Cullen caught her by the elbow, righted her gently as they both turned back to face the room.

 “What?” Cari’s whisper held within its tremor every fear she had never spoken.  For a moment the world pitched beneath her boots.

“No,” Cullen said flatly.

“What?” Lady Trevelyan’s outrage may have echoed more loudly than Cari’s confusion, but it was surely no greater.

Cari stared up at Cullen, watched his jaw clench. “Lady Cari is one of the Inquisition’s most valuable allies. She is the Templar Order’s greatest advocate at present. She will be sent nowhere she does not wish to go.”

 


	4. Magefire

The night was small and too many people better forgotten by history were too large within it—himself included—but, Maker be praised, they were nearly done. If there were mysteries left in the court—and of course there were—they were not for the Inquisition to unravel. Orlais could keep her masks and her Game and her intrigue. Cullen could only hope that after tonight, Essa would shed no more blood for Halamshiral and that soon the entire diplomatic farce would lay behind them in glittering shadows and the haze of too little sleepless nights.

“Is--?” There was fear in Cari’s voice as they reached the end of the long corridor.

For all that they hurried—breaths short, strides long—their treads were silent on the thick carpet. Cullen caught their reflection in the mirrored wall and realized he hadn’t been hiding his thoughts nearly as well as she had.

“Everyone’s fine,” Cullen assured her rounded a corner, then shortly another, moving toward the Montilyet family quarters.

His hand was an unceasing whisper beneath her elbow, support waiting for her to again need it, but she was steady now that the door had closed between her and Essa’s past. Her past too, if she wanted such finality, and while he thought that she should, if she didn’t ask, it wasn’t Cullen’s place to tell her so.  He feared he had already over-stepped his bounds, and he could only hope she did not expect an apology for something he didn’t regret.

“I’m sorry that I was delayed, but—“

Cari shook her head once, a quick terse gesture born of lingering nerves and gathering worry. “I knew it was important, whatever the reason, and you were right, it was easier getting it over and done with.”

If what little that he had seen qualified as “easier,” Cullen didn’t want to know what “harder” would have looked like. He had only seen Cari truly frightened once, and that had been when Essa lost Smoke. The panic in her eyes when her mother asked that she be sent back to Ostwick had rallied his every protective instinct.

“And thank you,” she murmured as they drew to a halt before a heavy, dark-stained door. “For what you said on my behalf. I…”

Her voice caught and Cullen closed his fingers gently on her elbow, spun her toward him slowly enough that she had every chance to flee before he wrapped her in a hug she would never admit she needed. For a pair of heartbeats she broke against him, arms tight around his waist, barely trapped sobs making weapons of the sharp steel buttons that pressed between their jackets.

“Thank you,” she whispered, cheeked pressed against his chest. “You really are perfect.”

He made a dark sound of negation, breath huffing in refutation against rose-scented hair.

“For her and for me,” Cari added, needling him as she dragged composure through laughing tears.

“For you?”

She looked up at him, eyes so like Essa’s but carrying heavier bruises within the grey. Cullen dropped a kiss on her forehead, just as he might have done in another to Mia or Rosalie and watched sadness shift in bittersweet shadows.

“I…” Cari sighed and put a step between them. “Whatever he was, I loved my brother.”

She wiped her eyes with delicate fingertips. “In a way, I miss him still.”

Her confession was so close to his own thoughts that Cullen nearly pulled her in for another hug, but she was already retreating, the stormclouds in her gaze chasing away more tender sentiments. She nodded toward the door.

“Shall we?”

Cullen knocked once, twice again in quick succession, and then three times again, slow enough to be mistaken as nothing but deliberate.  He was tired of how cautiously they all walked here. The blighted necessity of it. How any of the others could sleep was beyond him. Cullen saw enemies behind every mask.

“There you are.” The door was opened by Josephine, a smile curving her lips, dark eyes gleaming with excitement and relief. “We have news Inquisitor. News I believe you will be very glad to hear.”

Cari preceded Cullen into the opulently appointed parlor. The furniture was delicate, all but useless for someone as large as Bull or anyone bigger than Sera who wanted to actually sit comfortably.

“There’s tea,” Josie said, closing the door and locking it behind them. She gestured toward a dainty but extensive buffet on one side of the room. “Something stronger if you need it.”

“They said I needed it,” Essa called from across the room.

She stood nearly naked on a low sofa table, feet bare, hair mussed, and posture indolent. She held a whiskey glass in her right hand, grip as insouciant as any thoroughly debauched courtier whom she might have resembled but for her ruined dress. The remains of cerulean silk hung from one shoulder, barely covered her breasts in a jagged drape of shreds, dark ichors, and too much blood. No small measure of which was her own. Why she hadn’t taken the time to put on her armor was beyond him, but Cullen had already learned to keep those comments to himself. She was as ready to quit the palace as he was. They had already spent too long with the worst aspects of themselves.

“Yes, well, you were shocky, Mirabelle.” From the nearby desk, Varric waved one hand toward her, Cullen watched her eyes track the movement too slowly.

“Better now?” she asked, glaring at him.

“Getting there,” Varric retorted.

She had played her role so well, it had been a bit frightening. Made them wonder, at least early on, if their doppelganger had been unnecessary. At least until the little whispers had made their way through the court. Mademoiselle Genevieve Montreuil, back from years abroad, had spent too much time at sea and in the Free Marches where the Game was more barbaric if played at all. She was nearly a savage herself these days, according to the gossips, though she wore civility prettily enough and her avant garde fashion was being subtly appropriated by court designers already. If she deigned to give you a tale of her adventures they were worth the potential danger of her presence.   

Broken fingers here, an offer of a duel there. When Essa wasn’t fighting Tevinter mercenaries, she was terrorizing the Orlesian court with small acts of well-earned retribution.

“Take off your mask, my dear.” Vivienne and Dorian had been, for the last hour, taking turns at healing the worst of Essa’s injuries. “Let’s see that pretty face.”

Essa scoffed silently, but obeyed readily enough, reaching up with her other hand to remove the delicate mail coif that covered her hair and half of her face. The mask was more jewelry than anything, tiny crystals winked at the almond shaped eye holes, but it covered her hair, gave her image just another facet of warrior.

“ _Fasta vaas_ ,” Dorian whistled sharply at the reveal.

“Thought so,” Essa sighed. “Hurts like a sonofabitch.”             

Beside Cullen, Cari wavered on her feet, cheeks going pale. Cullen had taken two steps toward Essa when he caught himself.

Essa nudged Dorian with her toes. “How bad?”

“I will put it this way, my friend. Your sister is going to be the gladdest of us that all this fun is about to end. This latest addition to your already splendid nose is not one that I believe she will envy.”

Cari made a small sound of distress with which Cullen could only agree, though for different reasons.

“Did you stop a shield bash with your face?” he demanded, too sharply, too harshly. He knew as the question left his lips that it would eventually come back to him with barbs.

“Just the one time,” Essa snarked. “Been about a year now. Never again.”

Cullen hadn’t seen her face in days, which was not uncommon given how much time she spent in the field, but watching the crowds for glimpses of her, seeing only a swish of skirt or shimmer of mask had only added to the week of nightmares. Now there were only bruises and cuts to greet him, her eyes weary, the left already swollen. He wanted her gaze, wanted to hold her soul with his and know that she was alright, but she was angry, he could see in the jut of her chin, the lazy shift from one foot to the other as magic moved in careful knit over her skin. Her stare slid past his shoulder, collided with the wall above his head and held there. He wanted to offer comfort neither of them could afford here surrounded by enemies.

“And this shoulder?” Vivienne tsked, pulling a blood-soaked drape of silk from Essa’s skin, and not bothering to wait for whatever sarcastic response Essa might have. “Iron Bull.”

The summons was immediate and imperious. Bull shot a wary glance across the room, sat up just a little bit straighter on the dainty chair that somehow managed to hold him up.

“Ma’am?” There was a watchful edge to Bull’s deep voice.

“Do we need to have another discussion?” Vivienne asked.

“I—uh, I hope not.”

Vivienne nodded once, hummed once, a soft disdainful sound as she began cleaning Essa’s wound with a cloth already stained pink. Her motions were brisk, efficient and practical, with little apparent regard for Essa’s pain.

“Don’t take it out on him.” Essa laughed and the sound seemed to purify the heavy air, dispelling all but the darkest scents of blood, the putrescence of demon flesh. “It was my fault.”

She mumbled some excuse Cullen couldn’t quite hear and Vivienne sighed.

“One day, my dear, you will wear the mantle of Knight Enchanter with elegance and grace, and I will hardly recognize you.”

She dropped the cloth back into the bowl at Essa’s feet and began healing the gash that ran too close to the bend of her neck. Cullen wondered, though he knew better than to waste precious energy on such thoughts, how close she had come to losing her head.

“You’ll send me a medal won’t you?” Essa grinned down at the enchanter. “Or maybe some tiny, fancy cakes?”

The look in Vivienne’s eyes had withered the most impertinent of courtiers, but Essa’s smile persisted, genuine rather than arrogant. So utterly unintentionally charming that even the Lady of Iron could only sigh in fond exasperation.  The perfect contours of her face remained impassive. Essa’s grin widened a breath before Vivienne finally admitted, “Perhaps.”

*

It was done. The rift was closed, the empress’s enemies slain or exposed, and even now, Cari was exposing Florianne to the court, knife at the Duchess’s throat while the Court went mad over the entire blighted spectacle. She was brilliant. The brightest light in the ballroom even in her staid uniform and sensible hair. Essa leaned against a gilded column, watched the drama unfold with a face too sore to properly express her wonder.

They loved her. The whole corrupt sea of them. They wouldn’t always, of course. Eventually they would realize that an upstart heretic had dragged one of their own to her knees amid thunderous applause, but tonight she was the empress’s savior. Tonight the Herald of Andraste would help guide the fate of the kingdom and they loved her for it.

The music was returning to the ballroom. It rose over the ebb and flow of a thousand voices, swept gossip aside for later, left only celebration in its wake as strings and horns lifted victory toward the muraled and mirrored ceiling. The empress could be seen again on her balcony, Briala beside her, smiles like moonlight as they waved to the maddening crowd.

“Dance with me.”

“I’m not supposed to be seen talking to you, much less dancing with you,” Essa retorted quietly, not looking at Bull.

He stood behind her, broad back a cool wall of force, grey and unyielding as the Frostbacks, strength offered against the deceptive space between them. Strangers they had been all week, Essa and those she held dearest.

“I’ve danced with a lot of women since we got here,” Bull replied easily. “You’ve danced with a lot of men. It’d be a real shame for you not to let someone who cares about you put their hands on you.”

She flinched then, breath hitching hard and fast in her chest. “Dammit, how you do you _know_?” Essa hissed.

“Dance with me,” Bull said again, and this time he reached back, brushed his knuckles down the back of her arm.

Essa spun and he caught her knife hand only because he was expecting it.

“That’s what I thought.” His fingers squeezed against her wrist, found just the right point to have her grip spasming open with a deftness his size generally belied.

He caught the knife with his other hand, passed it back to her and waited impassively for her to return it to the sheath on her thigh.

“Fine,” Essa conceded ungraciously. “But get me across the floor, I want to check on her and she’s still outside.”

Bull swept her into his arms, one hand at her waist, the other spanning most of the left side of her back but starting at her shoulder blade. The waltz was simple and cheerful, a dance meant to call as many to the floor as possible in a bid to forget the sourest notes of tonight’s drama. Essa followed his lead into a froth of skirts and excited chatter. They danced just the right side of too close, Essa’s breath fogging the shine of his buttons.

“You talked to him since we got here?”

“You know that I have.” She caught a handful of heavy silk, lifting the full skirts of her dress enough to keep them from dragging the floor as they danced. The layers beneath the black taffeta were a profusion of crimson and cobalt chiffon. They sifted around her legs like soft eddies.

“I mean alone.”

“No,” Essa replied shortly. “There hasn’t been…”

She stopped before her excuse became the dishonor of a lie.

“I can’t go to him like this,” she sighed. “Maker’s breath, I nearly stabbed you for touching my arm.”

Bull made a noncommittal sound deep in his throat. “He’s not faring much better there,” he agreed. “Big difference though.”

“What’s that?” Essa gritted between her teeth.

He was right, it was harder to be touched with care right now. Strangers were easy, they were allowed no intimacy and the impersonal clasps of fingers or waist was no different than combat. Bull spun her, steps and hands more graceful than she could ever be, and for a moment Essa let the momentum carry her, let the speed make light her weighty steps.

“The retreat is what he needs,” Bull murmured as he snapped her back into his arms. “For you, it’s dangerous.”

Had her hands not been trembling, she would have argued.

“I just need time alone,” she tried instead.

Essa pointed her chin across the dance floor and Bull nodded, drew them through a corner step that put them spinning the direction she wanted. Essa peered toward the open balcony doors, tried to catch a glimpse of her sister.

“She’s fine,” Bull offered. “He’s with her.”

“Really?” Essa’s jaw relaxed for the first time since they had all gone back to the ballroom.

He chuckled. “Yes, he takes his duty very seriously.”

She continued watching, caught a glimpse of the pair of them just as Bull spun her away.

“They’re dancing too,” he offered helpfully and she rewarded him with what smile she could muster.

“Good.” Essa nodded. “She likes to dance, and she needs--”

“She needs a cup of tea and a book,” Bull countered before Essa could impose her own upon Cari. “Our Inquisitor will be herself again in no time. You’re worrying about the wrong one.”

An unusually full skirt brushed Essa’s as they turned through a group of dancers and suddenly the press of the floor was too close, too much. Bull was right. She was worrying about the wrong one.

“I need to get out of here,” she sighed. “I’ve been sleeping indoors too long.”

She hadn’t felt so caged since her first months at Ostwick Circle.

“You need to—“

“Listen,” Essa interrupted him, as they drew close enough to the orchestra that she could pitch her voice below the strings. “If we were different people, or in a different place, maybe, _maybe_ I could go to him and say ‘I need you to fuck me until I can’t rage anymore’.”

She missed a step beneath her coarse declaration, and Bull’s hold tensed just enough to keep her gliding above the marble.

“You just said yourself why I can’t do that. _You know_.”

She stressed the last angrily. She couldn’t stand before Cullen like this. Not with her skin all but crawling, desperate for attention born of fury and lust rather than love. Not two steps from wearing the face of his worst nightmare, not after he had been circled, prodded, propositioned and groped by those no worse than she. She had never touched him with anything but reverence; she would not go to him with every touch profaned.

“Shit,” Bull muttered. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Essa pronounced shortly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

But there was a sheen across her vision, and she couldn’t quite make out the smirk she knew was curving his lips, brightening the dark crags of his gaze.

“Do you trust me?”

The earnestness of his query was jarring and abrupt. Essa missed another step.

“What?” she breathed, as a tremor wracked her spine, nearly drove her into his chest. Bull spun them both into a shadowed alcove, feet moving with dizzying precision.

“Do you trust me, boss?” Bull repeated.

He slid them to a graceful halt. Essa could hear the music rise, transition to something louder and more jubilant beyond the muted confines of column and shadow and dark wood paneling.

“I—“ Her breath was coming fast, breasts pressed against the tight black lace of her bodice. She had told him she needed to get out of there, but now Bull stood between her and the alcove opening, worry creasing his face, hands still light upon her body as he waited for her answer.

“I do,” Essa said finally.

His eye closed on a sigh. “Then obey.”

“What?” The question was sharper this time, incredulity momentarily beating back fear and frustration.

Bull smiled. “If we were different...if things were different, maybe, I don’t know.” He chuckled, shook his head as if she were a puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted the work of, but couldn’t quite put down. “I’d tie you in knots, unravel you so that you were free before I ever untied you, but we know why that won’t work.”

Essa covered her mouth with her hand, eyes dancing, caught between mirth, disbelief, and--if she were being honest--a little intrigued.

“We do,” she agreed, the corner of her mouth quirking.

“But you can still trust me to help you,” he continued in a tone meant to cajole, convince, was only saved from being an insult by both of them knowing what he was doing. “I’m asking you to.”

“Because I can’t—“

“Because we’re friends,” he interrupted, not wasting precious time with her trapped. “Because you’re a Charger. Because I take care of those who are mine, and because I know you understand that from both sides of the bonds.”

He met her gaze unflinchingly, let her rattle through her own cherished duties, reason out for herself how far she would go to bully one of her own into letting her help.

“Dammit, why do you have to—?“

“Pull the few strings you leave hanging?” he returned. “Because they’re the only ones you’ve left us here and no one else—“

“Is foolish enough to corner me at my worst in a dark corner?”

“Right.” He took a step closer, tugged gently on the hand he still held. “A test. Come here.”

“I—“

He made a sound then, something caught between a snarl and a growl, a noise that conveyed all the nurturing of her childhood, all the ferocity of her most cherished guardians. Essa let out a breath she had been too long holding, allowed him to drag her forward the last remaining inches. When Bull’s arms finally closed completely around her, when the buttons of his jacket caught in the closely tatted lace of her gown, Essa wilted against him, let him hold her until she felt how small she was in his embrace. When the first deep rooted sob worked up from depths of her fears, Essa panicked.

“I can’t do this here,” she whispered, body tensed to fight.

“I know.” One hand came to rest, heavy and safe against the back of her head. “So do you trust me?”

“I do.”

He scooped her up in his arms, startling her so that she was forced to hold back a squeal of surprise.

“Andraste’s mabari! What are you doing?”

“Taking you to my rooms.” He stepped out of the alcove and into the crowd, attracting no small amount of attention even from the distracted court. Essa clung to his neck, eyes anywhere but on the whispering sea, lips close to his ear as she blushed, annoyed with the entire display.

“The rooms you share with—“

“Yep,” Bull replied smugly.

“And this is your way of summoning—“

“You’re a smart woman.”

One whom he had to know was currently plotting her revenge.

“We’re going to have to talk about you interrupting me.” Essa pinched him, the attack utterly wasted against the thick wool of his jacket, and the thicker muscles beneath.

“Later.” He grunted, long strides quickly taking them across the ballroom.

*

It took about a quarter hour for news of Lady Genevieve’s dramatic exit with the Inquisition’s qunari to reach Cullen and Cari. It took Cullen another quarter hour to make his own exit with considerably less notice. That hour was thankfully late enough that all further diplomatic negotiations were on hold until the next morning. For once, he did not mind the fashionable schedule kept by the Court. Cullen left Cari with Josephine, nodded once to Cassandra, a look of understanding passing easily between them. She knew his demons, knew a little of Essa’s, though not as much as Bull.

“I think we should all retire soon,” she agreed, as if he had spoken. “We will see you at breakfast, Commander.”

“Of course, Seeker Pentaghast.”

Tomorrow, they would discuss his returning to Skyhold before winter set in. There still time. Leliana’s scouts reported the pass yet clear. They could march on the Arbor Wilds at first thaw if their allies made haste with preparations and Cullen was able to do the same. Three months was not nearly as long as it might seem, but it could be done, and maybe they could manage to breathe a little along the way. Cullen wrote and rewrote a dozen lists in his head as he made his way through the palace, acutely aware that the trek to his quarters had never felt so far away.

“About time.” The Iron Bull was waiting in the salon of the small suite of rooms they had been given. He had a cut crystal glass of something dark and dangerous in one hand, a second on the table before him.

“Where is she?”

“Neck deep in cool water.” He slid the glass across the table toward Cullen.  “You’re going to want that before you go in.”

There was a time—sometimes there still were—when Cullen would have refused, bitter and resentful that Bull seemed to know so much more of his and Essa’s affairs, but not tonight. Not when his own demons plunged and snapped at the end of memory’s leash, devouring what little sleep he had found in the days since they arrived.

Cullen took the glass with grim gratitude, tossed the liquor back with a grimace. The Inquisition hadn’t warranted the good stuff. He wondered if that would change now.

“Anything I should know?” he asked, voice rough with a bite of cheap whiskey.

Bull leaned back in his chair. “Thought you didn’t want me in middle of things.”

He deserved the quiet rebuke in Bull’s tone. He had made an ass of himself once before, could only concede the point with a small dip of his chin.

“I’m not at my best right now,” Cullen began, raking his hand through his hair in frustration. He paused, hand on the back of his neck, fingertips useless against the tension he now carried.

“Neither is she.” Bull took a lazy swallow from his drink, balanced his wrist against on his knee as leaned forward, shoulders casting a wide shadow over the carpet, the dainty table between them. “Might look at this as a test.”

They had faced too many tests. Cullen’s fist tightened around the glass he held, the heavy crystal cracked with a diamond’s shriek, before the pressure shattered the thinner rim, cast glittering debris across the floor.

Bull nodded. “You go in there holding too tight and you’re going to cut you both.”

He eased forward, took the remnants of crystal from Cullen’s slack grip and pressed a linen napkin over the worst of half a dozen small wounds.

“Holding too tight to what?” Cullen asked in frustration.

“Everything.”

Bull pushed with words and too much understanding, and Cullen let him, moving across the room with only a little hesitance. He stopped in front of the bathing chamber door. Breathing slow, deliberately steady as his thoughts were anything but. Cullen stared at the dark red panel, stained to look like dragonthorn, and he listened for any sound beyond the quiet of the salon. He thought he heard a splash of water before he gathered courage and knocked twice in quick succession.

“Come in!”

There wasn’t enough of her in the muffled call. Cullen reached for the door knob, cast one last glance back at Bull who nodded once.

“Oh, and Cullen?”

He raised a brow in askance.

“Don’t touch her unless you’re certain you can keep touching her.”

Had the advice not been so ominously given, Cullen might have blushed. As it was, he opened the door with a trepidation he hoped neither Essa nor Bull could see.

She was indeed neck deep in cold water. Cullen wondered if she had ever looked so small as she did in the copper tub. The room was dark, lit only by a few candles, and the shadows stretched between them, long and endless. Cullen stood in the open door, feet not yet willing to leave the triangle of warm light.

“Close the door,” she said softly, not quite looking at him. “The lavender he doesn’t mind, but the ylang ylang makes Bull sneeze.”

The room should have been pleasant; there was a window opened to the garden and the last burnt edges of autumn drifted in to mingle with the softer floral scents, a tangle of gentler seasons before winter set upon them. Cullen shut the door silently behind him. He hadn’t been alone with her since Skyhold, and the brightness of those days could not be farther removed from this night. He wanted too much from both of them, could see in the set of her jaw that so did she.

“Are you—?” He licked his lips, pretended he didn’t understand why she turned sharply away. “Are you alright?”

She had told him about her demons, but until now—and still yet—he had not realized exactly what they meant. He could only hope he was strong enough to bear some of what she carried.

“Fine.” Essa dragged her hands up from the water to grip the sides of the tub. Her knuckles were white, and there was a healing scar across the back of her right thumb.  “And you?”

The attempt at conversation was laughable, but Cullen didn’t think humor would help them now. Instead he chose boldness, clung to it in her stead.

“You’re not.” He shook his head before she could argue. “And neither am I.”

The final steps between him and the tub stretched, but he took them, watched candlelight bounce against the copper, throw glints of chestnut into her eyes. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her bruised face. Vivienne and Dorian had outdone themselves; her nose was mostly itself, cheekbone no longer sunken, though it still bore a mottling of black and blue and violet. Essa’s eyes closed beneath the burden of his honesty, lashes dark crescents over the cinnamon constellations on her cheeks.

“No.” He was close enough now to see her breath ripple the water before her when she sighed, watch the bronze curves of her breasts rise toward the shifting surface before she spoke again. “I suppose we aren’t.” She gestured toward the small stool beside the tub, hand shaking water droplets down like benediction. “You can sit if you’d like,” she murmured. “But don’t…” Essa’s voice broke with longing and she glanced away. “Don’t touch me.”

Maker’s breath, how could she ask that of him? He hadn’t touched her in a week, had watched her spin from one courtier to the next, watched her stumble in from battles they couldn’t acknowledge, watched Dorian and Vivienne try to patch her up enough that her injuries wouldn’t be noticed. He wanted nothing more than to simply hold her, assure them both that nothing of this place would remain between them once they left Halamshiral. Not the blood, the nightmares, or the barriers he erected just to make it through each day.

“Essa…” Cullen reached for her hand and she flinched from him as if he had struck her, betrayal frosting in her eyes as they snapped back to him. “I’m sorry.”

He stepped away, willing to retreat completely if only to escape the hurt in her gaze.

“Sit,” she whispered. “Please.”

He sat—how could he not?—and when his shoulder brushed the side of the tub she took a deep breath,  as if drawing him in, holding him in the tangle of soothing aromatics. He did the same, could smell the warmth of her skin above the whole as he counted his heartbeats, listened to them both breathe through the trembling moments.

“Andraste’s mabari,” Essa sighed. “I have missed you.”

“And I you.” He watched her through the candlelight, could think of nothing more than tracing the fading color across her cheek, feathering kisses like balm to her lips now devoid of cosmetics and just as bruised as the rest of her.

“You can’t look at me like that, Cullen,” Essa pleaded.

“What if—?” He reached for her again, pulled back before she could retreat to the other side of the tub. Cullen fidgeted with the napkin in his hand before tossing it aside. The linen landed pale against the black lace of her discarded dress “A test, Bull said. Essa, we won’t know…Can I just kiss you?”

She closed her eyes, grip tightening to squeaks against the metal of the tub as she lifted her chin. “It’s a test we might fail.”

“Just one we’ll have to take again.” He wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to convince.

He started out cautiously, a gossamer sweep his lips over hers, a gentle nudge with his nose, tipping her head back, exposing the long damp column of her throat to the caress of firelight. Essa sighed again, the sound deep, one of such profound relief that Cullen grew daring. His hands cupped her neck, thumbs sweeping like smoke across her jawline before he sank into her, lips, teeth, and tongue stroking a fire in her he couldn’t have been prepared for.

It was the light that brought him to his senses. A searing blue that was too familiar as it blazed in Essa’s eyes. Threw memory, sharp and inevitable against him. Cullen released her as though she had burned him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the line of her back bared as she turned away. Light bounced against the silver-papered wall, a scream of nightmare cyan. He watched it waver, saw the shadows of her fingers as she laced them over her eyes until the blue guttered.

“No,” Cullen shook his head sharply. “I’m sorry. I should have—“ He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Well, I don’t know that I could have understood, but I should have tried.”

He was on his feet and pacing, strides carrying him away from the light, then back again as his hands worked open and soft to hard fists.

“Maker’s breath, Essa, I should have tried. I’m sorry I can’t touch you properly.” The idea of her hands on him was at once a rush of temptation, a sting of old fears. “I wish I could. You can’t know…maybe you do. This blighted week.”

“I know.” She turned back toward him, wrapped her arms around her knees, and sat forward with her chin just beneath the waterline. Her eyes were still tightly closed but the light was fading. “Don’t you think I know? That kiss was very brave—foolish on both our parts—but brave, and by all that I hold holy, I hoped you were right, hoped you wouldn’t see what I knew waited behind it for you.”

Tears slid in slow procession over her battered cheeks.

“It’s why I kept away. I _want_ you, Cullen. I want you in ways neither of us is ready for, may never be ready for, and it’s so much _worse_ having this desire now that I have you. Before it was mostly the release my body clamored for, but now, I want _you._ Until we’re both mindless and senseless and spent. Until I can’t feel rage thrumming through my veins.”

He stared at her in confusion. Silence growing thick with remorse.

“I tried to tell you they were connected,” she said sadly. She scrubbed wet hands across her face. “Just—“ She bit her lip, drew a breath and tried again. “Just go, Cullen. I’m going to head out tomorrow, get some fresh air, find a rift to close or something else to spend my rage on. I’ll be better after—“

“Will you?” he asked.

“By the time we’re both back at Skyhold,” she nodded. “I think so. This is new territory for me.”

“For us,” he corrected quietly.

“Cullen…”

“No, I mean….of course it’s you, yours, but…unless I’m misunderstanding, I’m involved too. You said if you didn’t have me…”

Her eyes flashed open. “I appreciate the team effort.” Essa’s smile was brittle. “But I can’t touch you without you feeling a hundred unwanted touches, without you falling back into nightmares I never want to give you.”

“No,” he sighed. “Not yet. But—“ Cullen swallowed hard, stared resolutely over her head. “But you can.”

“Yes,” Essa huffed. “I know I can. I have. It’s—“

“You misunderstand.” And Maker, forgive him, but her blunt confession only made him bolder. “I mean, with me.”

“With you?” Her gaze blew wide, and even in the low light, beneath the marks of too many recent battles, he watched her flush.

“There’s nothing wrong with my voice,” Cullen told her, absurdly proud when the offer emerged smoothly and determinedly ignoring his own furious blush. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, stared down into the bottomless grey of her eyes, watched fire spark bright and azure.  “And I’m familiar enough with giving orders.”

  



	5. Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SMUT. ABSOLUTE SMUT. NSFW. Not necessary to the plot of the book if you want to skip it though it is not gratuitous. Relationship building, smut with feelings. Cullen x Essa.

Essa stood at the foot of Cullen’s bed—well, not Cullen’s bed. No, that was a familiar place now, one that smelled like both of them and cool mountain air with a glitter of stars or sweep of clouds always overhead. No, this was the bed he had been given, too large, too ornate, covered in canopies and dark blue sheets. The sheets weren’t bad, she might actually like them if they weren’t in the Winter Palace. The linens were pulled straight, the heavier covers folded down near the foot of the bed, quilted satins and scratchy brocades not close enough to offend sensitive skin. There were candles lit on the table by the bed, not too close to the drapes, but near enough to cast close shadows around the whole. Across the room, the garden window was open. A promise of winter and whispers of night-blooming phlox and tuberose drifted in on the wind.

Cullen sat on one side of the bed, one leg pulled up, bent at the knee, the other foot still firmly on the thick carpet. He had changed out of his uniform in the nervous moments while she paced alone in the bathing chamber, his suggestion thrumming through her body in temptation. The soft linen tunic and sleep pants were as familiar as he was now; she was gradually losing count of the times she had stripped them from him. She wanted him so much her body ached with it, muscles too tight and shuddering, rattling joints and wounds and battle-weary flesh.

“You’re certain about this?” she asked, not daring to come closer without his assurance.

“I am.”

He reached one hand out to her, knowing she wouldn’t take it. She couldn’t touch him; it was an unspoken rule now that she had kissed him with his worst nightmare blazing in her eyes.  That he still wanted her—in his bed, in his life—after that was something of a miracle.

“Essa,” he coaxed softly. “Give me your hand.”

She walked forward hesitantly, offered of herself what she could. He didn’t understand how hard it was for her, couldn’t know how even the most innocent touches threatened to devour her in pure, unbridled want, but he was trying.

“I can’t take much,” she murmured, fingers twitching as they slid across his palm. “It’s not like romance novels, passion freed and all that. It’s unwanted.”

“Tell me.” His fingers closed over hers firmly, no gentle tease, and he tugged her to sit on the bed before him.

“Sometimes it hurts.” He already knew that. Knew that her skin could get so oversensitive that only post-climax oblivion would offer relief. “It’s worse in some ways now. I don’t just want the release. I want you. Desperately. Painfully. That’s not nearly as romantic as books would have you believe either.”

It was a damned nuisance, and she had never felt so out of control as she did here.

Cullen chuckled ruefully.  “No, I know it isn’t.” He had his own experience with hating his body’s desires. “But it’s worse here?”

His thoughts followed hers so closely that Essa could only sigh in relief.  “Too much rage. They sort of feed each other. Fighting helps, but I’m too busted up for any more of that tonight. And I think I’m out of enemies.”

Cullen squeezed her fingers. “I wouldn’t go that far. We’re still in Halamshiral.”

“We are.” Her smile was fleeting.

“What do you need?” His thumb swept across her knuckles and Essa felt the caress shoot to the hottest parts of her. She pulled away with grimace of apology.

“Orgasm coma?” She laughed, but the humor couldn’t stand beneath the heavier truth.

“I think we can manage that with a little imagination.”

Essa laughed and this time the sound was bright. It bounced off of the shadows, lay between them giddy and effervescent. “You’re getting ballsy, Rutherford.”

“I am. You do have a way of bringing out my impetuousness, Trevelyan.” He reached for her again, and candlelight dancing like dawn in his amber eyes. “But this isn’t so reckless as that. I’ve been thinking about it for some time, planning possible…”

“You can say strategies.”

Cullen laughed quietly. “Am I so predictable?”

“One of us should be,” Essa griped.

“You’re not so volatile as you fear.”  He held her hand carefully, just the right amount of pressure, fingers still against her leaping pulse.

“You’ve…” she wasn’t quite certain she had heard him correctly. “You’ve thought about this before.”

“I have,” he admitted, the right side of his mouth hitching up in a smile. “Parts a bit more than I should admit. This is us, Essa. This is our reality, and I know it will not always be easy, but Maker’s breath, woman. I want us. There are going to be times—rare as the situation we’re in now, I’m certain—when I can’t handle being touched. Not even by you.”

There was regret in his voice, but his was a truth she had already faced, would continue to face, for as long as she was lucky enough to have him in her life. Essa nodded, lifted her gaze to his so that he could see his demons could not hurt her. Could not hurt them.

He squeezed her hand again before continuing, “And there are going to be times when your desires worry you—“

“Consume,” she said, interrupting him, correction cold and flat enough to stand on.

“Consume then.” He nodded. “But you can’t hide them from me. Even when we are our most divergent, can’t you still let me—“ He shook his head. “Shouldn’t we still be in this together?”

“Alright, fine.” Essa folded her arms beneath her breasts and forged ahead, chin lifting in exasperation with the both of them. No more dancing around, no matter how prettily. “You’ve thought about this before and you think the solution is for me to bring myself to orgasm.”

She wasn’t one to choose pretty words when plain speaking would do. Cullen hid a smile not quickly enough and she scowled at him for his trouble.

“While you watch,” she added deliberately, before she had to catch her quivering lip between her teeth and ruining whatever bluster she was striving for.

Andraste, preserve her.  The idea was terrifying in its promised effectiveness.

“Not quite so…removed,” Cullen replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. Even in the quiet light, his blush was obvious.

He was serious, not that she hadn’t suspected he was serious, but dear, sweet mabari, she had no idea the man would be quite so devoted—well that was wrong. Essa’s heart beat frantically in her chest and she found herself looking everywhere but at his face.

“If we’re going to do this—“ Their hands were still joined, fingers laced together so tightly they made of the simple affection something intimidating.

“Talk to me,” Essa said suddenly, fighting every impulse to leap to her feet and pace. “I need you to tell me what you’ve been thinking. Cullen, you can’t have slept much more than I have this week. Now you’re offering me some sort of—of—guided sexual mediation—it hardly seems real.”

Cullen barked a laugh into the shadows between them. If his cheeks could grow redder they had, but that did nothing to stop his impudent grin.

“That’s about the long and short of it,” he said, deliberately reminding her of happier times.

Essa laughed. “I love you,” she huffed, staring up at him through her lashes.

“I love you.”

She lifted their hands to her lips, stopped the reflexive action before they touched. “We could say goodnight here, you know. One failed kiss, a lesson of caution learned. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. You don’t have to try to be quite so accommodating.”

“Is that what you think?”

His voice was low, not a little dangerous; the threat settled at the base of her spine. Essa bit her lip to keep from whimpering, drew in a breath that she knew wouldn’t calm her. Not enough. Not now.

“You can’t kiss me without seeing a desire demon in my eyes.” It was the only argument she had left.

“Can’t,” Cullen said roughly. “Has little to do with want.”

He released her hand and reached for the ties of her robe, then seemed to think better of it.

“Take this off, Essa.”

 *

“Now?”

Essa stared up at him, a storm gathering in her wide grey eyes.  Cullen might have taken the instruction back had her stumbling query not been issued between breathlessly parted lips. He wasn’t accustomed to having the advantage in discussions of their love life. Usually, he was the one blushing like a chantry sister—a terrible expression that, Leliana was a chantry sister for Andraste’s sake! But Essa was notoriously brazen, nearly impossible to fluster where others were concerned. Cullen seemed to have a knack for flustering her.

She was beyond flustered now.

“Unless…?” He let the escape clause hang between them, but Essa shook her head.

“Cullen?”

“Mhmmm?” He raised one brow, looked pointedly at the slim ribbon of silk belted around her waist.

Essa stood, hands shaking as she untied the belt. “When we get home…”

“Yes,” he agreed too quickly to her unspoken promise.

“Just checking.” She grinned, shrugged the crimson silk from her shoulders to pool like blood at her feet.

She stood naked before him, chin lifted in defiance of her own fears and no few of his. Cullen counted new bruises, fading scars, and healing lacerations, committed to mapping with hands and mouth each change in the landscape of her body. Soon, he promised them both silently. When the Winter Palace was just another chapter in the book of bad memories. Maker’s breath, he wanted to kiss her, wanted everything from both of them. His body stirred, but he knew already that way lay peril.

“Now what?” she breathed, hands in fists at her sides.

Cullen knew she was fighting not to touch him, hated the necessity for both their sakes, but if his body could offer neither of them comfort tonight, he was not powerless.

Not with her.

He nodded toward the pillows.

“Get on the bed, Essa.”

He arranged her with careful direction, and she let him, eyes never leaving his as he murmured wishes as if they were orders, watched to see if she would accept the fantasy he hoped he could turn into something real enough for her. How many nights had he imagined her almost like this? Hair spread out on his pillows, body all but glowing golden against dark sheets. Cullen shifted closer, until he could feel the heat she radiated.

Too hot, she would worry, but her hands had been ice cold moments ago, and he preferred the change.

“You are beautiful,” he told her. “And you have no idea how often I have thought of you like this. Does that make me terrible?”

Her hands moved restlessly over the sheets and she shook her head sharply. Concern for his conscience marring the bridge of her again-broken nose.

“Then your wanting me so much doesn’t make you terrible either.”

It was a gamble, he hadn’t been quite certain if it was the right thing to say, but as Cullen watched her breath wrack loose from her body, he knew had chosen correctly. He reached for her right hand, tapped the mattress beside her and waited for her to nod before he took her wrist in his palm.

“This one is mine tonight.” He leaned forward, placed a not-quite chaste kiss on her palm. “The other’s yours, possibly Andraste’s, so I’m not going to try to claim that one.”

Essa giggled, nerves easing just a bit, and he was emboldened to kiss her palm again.

“But this one is mine.” He placed her hand over her heart. “Everywhere this goes tonight, mine goes too. My fingertips.”

He dragged her hand down her body, watched gooseflesh rise in the wake of her fingers.  When her palm grazed the tight peak of one nipple Essa gasped.

“My palm,” Cullen added, guiding her fingers in a slow caress. “My touch.”

Essa arched up against that touch with a moan and Cullen released her hand while he still had the willpower to do so.  Her eyes sparked, blue against the grey, and he saw remorse snuff out those embers too quickly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed softly.

“You are…” she sighed, shoulders almost relaxing against the wall of pillows. “You’re full of surprises, Commander.”

He smiled. “Can’t let you have all the fun.” He glanced to her right hand. “This is the part where you follow directions.”

She sucked lightly on her bottom lip, drew her left down her body in ruthless taunt. “Then you’d better give me one, or I’m going to get ahead of you.”

Her fingers grazed the dark curls at the juncture of her thighs and Cullen groaned. “We may have to have a talk about that other hand. You’re too impatient, woman. You wanted a coma, not a quick—“

She moaned his name when her fingers slid against her folds and Cullen lost his breath, lost what little sense was left in his head when she opened her legs just enough for him to watch the scarred tips of her fingers brush across damp, sacred flesh. She pressed into her own touch, and watched him, all reticence finally lost, as she dared him to stop her. When the first little climax break across her face, Cullen saw that it was nothing close to what she needed.

“Essa.” His throat was too dry to form a more complete reprimand. Cullen reached for the glass of wine by the bed.

“Yes?”

Her fingers stilled and she opened her eyes, held his stare as bold as ever and wanton. Her pupils were nearly all that remained in her eyes, rimmed with a thin circle of silver blue that did not so much cast light now as bring attention to the dark. Cullen smiled slightly around the cold rim of the glass. He swallowed thickly.

“Let me have a turn.” He waited for the fire in her eyes to clear just enough that he knew she was with him, not trapped in pleasure’s blaze or desire’s thrall.

Essa nodded once.

He moved her left hand back to the bed beside her, and when she glowered at him, he gave her a wink, just to watch her frown darken more. If he had any reservations about what they were doing, they fled when her grin flashed like quicksilver. He touched her knee with the foot of the wine glass made certain she saw him before the crystal brushed cool against her skin.

“Open.”

Her breath shuddered as she complied, body offered up to his regard as her left hand tangled in the sheets, cloth protesting the sudden violent grip. Her right hovered, waiting impatiently for whatever he might ask and for a moment Cullen faltered beneath the glory of such faith.

“Where do you want…?” Essa’s voice shook and he came back to his purpose.

“Everywhere,” Cullen muttered. “Everywhere.”

He worked her mercilessly, his hands clamped down on his thighs. There would be bruises, five on each leg, but the painful grip was all that was keeping him grounded enough that he wouldn’t give in to the temptation to reach for her as he moulded her with her own until she was a beautiful trembling wreck before him.  

“Stop,” Cullen said abruptly, voice rough, as her fingers—his fingers—grazed close to her clit. “Now, slide down.”

She whimpered as she obeyed, eyes shimmering with lust but still floundering up through the depths to meet his. To hold against the storm they were building within her.

“Down, Essa,” and he knew the command for the plea that it was. “I want to be inside of you.”

She bit back a whine, or tried to, the sound escaped the sharp reprimand of her teeth, crossed the distance he could hardly bear to have between them and settled like low and hard and aching, drew from him his own. Cullen watched her heart beat hard and fast in her chest, waited breathlessly as she finally slipped one finger inside. Essa’s body clenched, back arching her breasts toward the canopy. Her head fell back, breaking the hold of her gaze. Cullen followed her pulse to the taut line of her throat, imagined his mouth on her skin, the taste of her cries.

“Another, Essa.”

Terse now. He wasn’t sure which of them was closer to the summit. Dear, sweet Andraste. Neither of them had laid a hand on him and he was so far gone just from watching her come apart that he could barely speak. He had nearly lost track of how long he had teased her, drawing out her orgasm, denying her anything beyond the smallest releases. Sweat beaded on her skin, her breathing nothing more than harsh pants. She whispered his name, the syllables broken like prayers as they filled the room, until he could hear nothing beyond them and the rush of his blood calling back to her.

He was driving them both mad.

“Another.”

“Cullen…” But she didn’t refuse either of them.

“Harder, my darling.” He watched the endearment rock through her. Her eyes shut tightly and she fought the climb, fought the magnitude he knew would soon leave her shaking and utterly, utterly spent. “As hard as you can take.”

He knew the moment her fingertips–his fingertips–curved against that sweetest spot. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Trust me, my love. Not yet.”

“Cullen.” Her left hand joined her right, but still she waited, thumb grazing, fingers spreading her wide so that the heel of her palm—his palm—was poised perfectly.

“Tell me.” Essa’s head thrashed on the pillows, hair wild around her face. “By the Mabari, Cullen, please. Tell me.”

She was begging, sobbing, fingers still gliding and restless, everywhere but where she most needed as she waited for his command.

Cullen leaned closer, breath cool against her knee and finally, oh, Maker, finally, his hand splayed across the inside of her thigh.

“Essa.” He called her closer to the brink, fingertips reaching to brush across her knuckles as he shifted her fingers, pressed her palm back that last scant distance between torment and ecstasy. “Come.”


	6. Apostate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essa and Cullen continue being annoyingly cute and smutty. The Iron Bull and Cari continue being awesome. And look, Krem!

The rain snuck in early that morning, pouring down like absolution, muting the restless, simpering sounds of the palace. Cullen lay sprawled across the right side of the bed, legs tangled in cool sheets and warm blankets, arm hanging off the mattress toward the floor where Essa slept. Her body curved toward the open window, bare legs and face spattered with raindrops. Her breathing was deep and even and Cullen lingered abed listening to the steady rise and fall intertwine with the drumming rain. The night before they had slept, truly slept, for the first time since arriving in Halamshiral and he could only be grateful that he had been able to bring her some measure of the contentment that having her near brought him.

“Good morning.”  Essa rolled to her back with a deep, stretching breath, lips stretching wide around a jaw-cracking yawn.

Cullen’s fingers hung just above her cheek, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin and gauge it her normal. Her eyes fluttered open, blinked once, twice, in the low persistence of growing light. They were a cool flat grey, embers long banked to cold ash.

“Good morning.” He wiggled his fingers at her slowly. “How did you sleep?”

“You don’t know?” she asked with a grin. “I woke myself up snoring. Though I suppose you might not have noticed, chopping down the Planasene Forest as you were.”

Cullen laughed quietly, and the morning yearned ever closer, dawn shimmering behind the shadows of the storm.

“Magic,” Essa warned, and waited for his nod.

He felt her pull on the Fade. The light that answered spiraled like mist around her right hand. She moved cautious fingertips over the bruises still marring her face before pressing her hand to the healing wound on her shoulder, a low hum of appreciation rumbling in her throat.

“You’re getting better at that,” he observed in a sleep-roughened voice. Cullen watched a smile of pride spread across her face.

“I am,” she agreed. “I mean, I’m still no good in the midst of battle and certainly don’t call me if it’s grim, but working on both of us has helped. I’m not quite dreadful anymore.”

She was better than not quite dreadful, though her healing ran more to comfort and ease than rapid mending.

“Essa, about last night…”

“Do we need to talk about last night?” she asked curiously.

Cullen huffed out half a chuckle. “Not with any concern,” he assured her, curling his fingers back to stop from touching her. “But—“

He found feel his cheeks warming, and could only laugh at himself. After everything they had shared that he had any inhibitions left was ludicrous.

“But?” Essa prompted, dragging herself up to sit. His tunic hung off of her shoulder, undyed linen pale against her sun-bronzed skin and the angry wound that had nearly broken her collarbone.

“Thank you,” he said simply. She deserved nothing less than the unadorned truth and it was all that he had to give her anyway.

“You’re thanking me?” Her brow furrowed in disbelief.

“Yes.” Cullen sat up against the pillows, shook blood back into his arm until his hand tingled. “You could have run—“ Essa scowled. “Tactically withdrawn,” he amended.

“For your sake,” she added.

“Yes, I—“ Cullen ran a hand through his tousled curls. “Do you…can you come up here?”

“For a bit.”

She crawled up on the bed with him, sat just out of reach. He gestured with his chin at the distance. “So only a little better then?”

Essa shook her head. “A lot better, but I don’t want to take any chances. You’re right, I do retreat.  I’m...comfortable protecting those I care about with my absence.”

“Understandable,” he said softly. “But not always necessary, and I hope never with me. That’s why I wanted to thank you. You took a chance last night. I just wanted you to know that I realize, at least some, of how hard that was for you.”

“Andraste’s ass, Cullen, are you trying to make me cry?” She tried to frown away her grin and failed, swiped in annoyance at misting eyes.  “If we’re handing out thank yous…”

“Don’t you dare!” he interrupted, aghast that she would thank him for the intimacies that had passed between them.

Essa’s laughter bounced bright against the torrent beyond the window and she covered her face with her hands.

“You!” She gasped for air, laughed until she was lying on her side, arms clutched across her stomach. “You are the most confounding man. I wasn’t going to thank you for the orgasms, though I can if you’d like.”

“Maker’s breath, no!” Cullen leaned his head back against the headboard and covered his eyes with one hand.

She snickered, eyes dancing with merriment  as she shoved herself back upright. Cullen dropped his hand and stared at her balefully, wanting only to pull her into his arms, to hold her face against his heartbeat, feather kisses over her tangled hair.

“But,” Essa said, sobering. “I can’t imagine what it took for you to not turn away from what you saw in my eyes.” She glanced down at her hands. “So thank you, for honoring me with that courage.”

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re making it difficult not to kiss you.”

“A little kiss,” she conceded.

“Really?” She had fallen asleep sated and exhausted, but neither of them had been certain how calm she would awaken.

"Just a little,” Essa nodded, smile drifting sweet and evanescent.  “Then I’m going out to meet Krem and the boys, get out of Halamshiral even if only for a few hours.” She reached for his foot, hand warm through the covers as she rubbed at his arch. “This alright?”

“Ye—“ Cullen cleared his throat at the undignified crack in his voice. “Yes.”

Her thumb pressed hard against his foot and he hummed in pleasure.

“Sorry,” she pulled away in chagrin before he could stop her. “I wish I could take you with me.”

“Cassandra would kill me,” he said instead of the dozen reasons they both knew he had to stay behind.

“The Inquisitor too,” Essa smirked. “So are you two official now?”

Cullen laughed. “I don’t think waltzing in front of the Orlesian court is quite such a declaration. If it is, I believe Bull is going to be in the most trouble. Genevieve Montreuil is reported to be quite the handful.”

“She is,” Essa agreed merrily. She chewed on her lip for a moment. “My sister is well?”

“She is,” Cullen assured her. “She’s better at this sort of thing than either of us, I think. With any luck we’ll conclude all negotiations in the next few days.”

“Thank the Maker.” She started to climb down from the bed, legs startling bare as they unfolded from beneath the long fall of his shirt.

“You’re not skipping out on that kiss are you?” he asked gruffly.

“I’m not.” Her cheeks rose, and she licked the curve of her lips. “I was just putting a little more space between us. To be safe”

He was tired of safe. So blighted tired. “For you or for me?”

“Mostly you?” Her answer was as much question as anything and she shrugged. “I’m calm enough to kiss you. Maybe not to kiss you quite as senseless as I’d like, but I won’t fly apart on you this morning.”

Last night had been different. Last night she had broken into so many pieces he could only marvel as she lay beside him, voice aching and all but lost, as she put herself back together.

“Then come here.” He reached for her hands, drew her forward on her knees until she was stretched over him, torso a taut line hovering over his legs and hips. Her breath struck his check, and he shivered beneath her.

“Cullen…” She was uncertain, but not so much that she refused him when he tugged her yet closer.

Essa’s knees slid apart, pinned the covers across his as they found purchase on either side of his waist.

“This is not cautious.”

He could smell her arousal, warm with promise beneath the cool drape of the rainy morning. Cullen lifted his hips, pressed his growing erection against the curve of her ass, watched her body bow like benediction.

“Cullen,” she moaned, grinding back against him once before she stopped and glowered down at him. “Teasing yourself is not the same as teasing me. You’ll undo all of your good work if I leave here thinking about you like this, knowing I can’t—“ She shook her head abruptly, leaned forward to plant a hard kiss on his lips. “I should go.”

“Or…”

Essa swallowed hard, took an unsteady breath. “Or?”

Cullen sat up, pushing her back more firmly onto his lap. They both groaned, and whatever his counter offer might have been, it disappeared into frantic want.

“Are you--?” Her breathing was labored, breasts rising against the low, open collar of tunic.

“Am I?”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes, but Cullen could see the grey diminishing, her pupils spinning wide and dark with desire.

“Are you going to have to do something about that this morning?” she asked softly. “Or are you going to suffer with your discipline.”

His hands were on her thighs, palms safely on the thin fabric. There were at least four layers—sheets, quilt, duvet, sleep pants—separating them, but they weren’t enough. Maker’s breath, she made him foolish. Worse, she made him enjoy being foolish. Cullen closed his eyes, drew in a breath meant to calm. The last time she’d had sex, she had killed the man she loved, and, while certainly not so disastrous, the last time for him had been a cold, dissatisfying affair filled with too much guilt and bad memories to make it worth a repeat attempt. And yet, here he was, perilously close to begging her to be foolish with him.

“Which would you prefer?” he asked, fully prepared to do whatever she willed.

She clasped her hands behind her back so as not to touch him, but the motion only thrust her breasts forward, nipples drawn tight against the pale fabric of his shirt. He should let her go. Knew it. Was having just a little trouble convincing his hands to follow orders.

Essa’s hips moved restlessly, eyes slipping shut as she grinded lightly over him. “No suffering.”

Cullen’s breath left him in a rush, hands clenching and unclenching against her legs. “As you wish.”

His heart was beating so loudly in his ears, he didn’t see how she couldn’t hear it too. She flexed her knees, rose up enough to place unwanted distance between them, before leaning forward. His shirt dragged against the twitching muscles of his abdomen and Essa brushed a kiss against his cheek.

“Shall I stay and watch?” she whispered against his jaw.

Cullen murmured a silent prayer just to keep from babbling in response.

“Essa?” She bounced up and to one side, was an arm’s length away before he untangled his tongue.

“It’s alright,” her smile was effortless, so damn genuine it stole his breath.

“You could,” he offered her a hesitant smile in return. “You could try your hand at giving directions.”

*

The Iron Bull was waiting for her in the stables, a smirk hidden deep within gaze, pulling his lips into something of grimace. Essa couldn’t imagine him having trouble schooling his expressions. She winged a brow at him in askance before she remembered he wouldn’t see it beneath her mask.

“It’ll keep,” he grunted, before affecting pleasantries none would find amiss between two rumored to be the least civilized guests at the empress’s ball.

Essa answered each shortly but politely, her Orlesian accent stressed behind the severity of her smile. The morning hung around her like a cloak of the lightest silk, gossamer sparkling with glory even as the rain continued beating down upon the Dales.

“You riding backwards today?”

Essa stared at the improperly placed saddle on Geri’s back. The forder nudged her in the hip, cast a glance at Bull. She knew they were both laughing at her. She stuck her nose in the air, glared at both them in haughty offense but said nothing that might further damn her.

They rode unimpeded through the city, Geri maintaining a splashing trot to keep up with the horse Bull still wouldn’t stop complaining he had to ride. Mabel, a name better saved for cossetted bovines, had to be part druffalo; she was easily the largest horse Essa had ever seen….and Bull still looked a little ridiculous on her. Still, she bore his weight without apparent notice, seemed utterly unimpressed with his both his horns and his booming voice. Essa thought those last two were what rankled. Not the indignity of “forcing an infantryman into an uncomfortable saddle.” He liked to remind her that she had done the same to Cullen.

She was pretty sure that was a double entendre and was still working out a properly scathing reply.

The rain increased its urgency as they left the city behind. Great sheets of water poured from the sky, instantly soaked them to the skin. What light passed through the trees was rendered pale, grey-white with fury. Essa turned her face to deluge, let it wash her clean of the city’s taint.

“You’re feeling better.”

“Are we stating the obvious now?” Essa asked, voice pitched over the rain pattering against the highway.

Bull laughed, the sound as deep as the Waking Sea. She could smell the ocean in the distance, the salt air turning brackish in the rain.

“No, just trying to decide if I want to give you shit or ask real questions.”

They rode into the trees, taking a narrow trail that ran red with clay. The limbs overhead blocked some of the rain, but not enough. Bull was one of the few who never complained of the wet. The horse plodded into the day, unperturbed.

“Real questions,” Essa decided. “I’ll be honest, I’m still processing last night and this morning.”

“You two finally?”

Essa’s “Ha!” echoed off the rain. “Hardly. Last night we couldn’t kiss without reminding him of his worst memories.”

“You made an awful lot of noise for someone—“

She reached over and smacked his arm, the slap of her hand against his wet skin louder than the sting.

“So just no kissing then?” Bull asked with a grin.

“No touching,” Essa admitted. Her glance skittered out into the woods, moved over the water-darkened bark and drooping branches. “Not each other.”

“Niiceee,” Bull murmured appreciatively. “I wasn’t sure Cullen had it in him.”

“You were worried?” She couldn’t decide if she was touched or insulted.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “A little. There isn’t as much room for pain with you two as you think, but if you were going to scrape against each other wrong, it would have been last night.”

“He said you called it a test.”

“I did.” Bull nodded again, eye deceptively lazy.

“We took too many chances this morning,” she confessed.

“Did you?”

“Are you going to give me more than two words any time soon?”

“I might.” Bull grinned, held up both hands before Essa could retaliate. “Cullen the reckless one or you?”

Essa tipped her head to the side, stared at him curiously. “You already know the answer to that. You’re just asking out of politeness.”

“The Chief isn’t one for politeness,” Krem said stepping out the shelter of a leaning tree.  “Good morning, your worship.”

“Good morning, Krem.”

He reached out, laid one gauntleted hand on Mabel’s nose. “And to you, you tolerant beauty.”

The big horse snuffled softly in reply and Essa wouldn’t have broken it to either of them that Mabel was no prettier in the horse world than she was in the rest of it.

“Come on,” Krem said, more to Mabel than the rest of them. “Let’s get you out of the rain.”

Bull and Essa exchanged a grin as Krem led them around a sharp bend of the trail. The slick path doubled back behind a rocky outcropping to a long abandoned grist mill. The house was only partially intact, but the large barn was solid and dry. A few of the Chargers had been camped their all week, taking turns going into the city with Sera, and gathering information from the small villages outside of Halamshiral.

“How’s the Inquisitor?” Krem asked as Essa rubbed Geri down with extra warm hands, drying the forder’s coat with magic.

A chorus of suggestive noises came from the tack room at the end of the aisle. Essa picked out Stitches, Dalish, and Rocky before Iron Bull joined them, rumbling something that temporarily shut them up.

“Hey, boss, we’re playing Wicked Grace, you in?”

Essa grinned, lifted her voice to carry. “Yeah, I’m in. But I’m not drinking. I need to read your reports on a clear head.”

She wasn’t certain about the empress’s pet apostate, even less now that Morrigan would be joining them at Skyhold.

“Dammit,” she heard Bull mutter. “I’m out then.”

Essa had a knack for taking Bull’s coin when she was sober. “Coward!”

“Unless you want to play for truths,” Bull roared back.

“She’s fine,” Essa said, finally answering Krems question about Cari as she considered. She ran her hands down over her clothes and hair, held them out in offering to her friend.

“Let me take the metal off,” Krem said, grin tugging his lips up on one side. “Can’t have me cooking in it.”

When Essa's laugh soared toward the rafters of the barn, only Bull knew it for the miracle that it was. She wasn’t quite free of her past. She didn’t know if she ever would be, or if she would recognize herself unfettered, but by the Mabari, she wanted to.

“We playing for truths or not, boss?”

“Fuck,” Essa said, wiping tears from her eyes as she reached out to ruffle Krem’s hair dry. “Why not?”

*

Thunder boomed close enough that Cari flinched as the fury of the storm spread brilliant webs across the night.  Caution, as instinctive as the most primitive terrors, urged her away from the window, but Cari resisted every impulse to scurry to her bed. She stood—as always—in defiance of childhood fears, watched with an unwavering gaze as silver-white fractured the greater darkness.

“She’s fine, you know.” Cullen’s reassurances were always born of a faith Cari could not fathom. Lately, she found herself dreading Essa’s every departure and worrying over her every return.

“They’re caught in this mess,” Cari gestured toward the window with a gentle lift of chin. “They should have come back in tonight and now they’re caught somewhere on the road—“

Cari’s worries became a yelp of fright as the room shook beneath another roll of thunder and lightning flashed, stealing her vision and filling her mouth with a bitter sting. The storm was setting upon them in earnest, as if the Maker himself had taken offense at the Winter Palace’s secrecy and decadence. She was ready to go home.

“Cari.”

She turned slowly toward Cullen, her arms folded tightly, as if adding bars to the cage that held her rapidly beating heart.  When had he stopped calling her Lady Trevelyan?

Probably about the same time she cut her hair.

“I’m sorry.”

Cullen shook his head to negate her words. The man seemed to tolerate apologies only marginally better than her sister did. Cari hadn’t wanted to like him.

“You needn’t be,” he said quietly. “She worries about you as well.”

They all treated her as if she were fragile, despite considerable efforts she had made to prove the contrary. Cullen was the worst. At least Josephine and Leliana forgot to be careful with her when it was more convenient to treat Cari as tool rather than person. They had certainly forgotten enough in the past week. Not Cullen; she often found herself praying he would.

Another crash of thunder stole any reply she might have made and Cari tried hard not to view the weather as a portent. The last place Essa needed to be was Halamshiral tonight. They both knew it. Even the weather knew it.

But as worried as she was about Essa’s return, she was equally terrified of what might have delayed her.

“I am not so delicate.” Cari wanted to snatch back the words, but they had already flown into the room between them, accusation ringing like poorly struck brass. She had worried he thought her weak, even more so after her mother had asked for her return, when Cullen had watched her deepest fears steal her composure.

Cullen smiled then, and that he let the expression slip was testament to how much their time at the Winter Palace was already wearing on him. Even still, the curve of his lips was so fleeting Cari might have missed it in the dim candlelight had a sheet of lightning not struck the windows behind him. The sudden radiance blinded them both and burned the impression of his face into Cari’s gaze. His eyes were flat, hard and brittle like chips of amber, and the tilt of his lips was a cold, cruel shadow against so much light.

“Who said you were delicate?” he asked, voice pitched just above the onslaught of the storm.

Even if she couldn’t see the consequences, Cari knew when someone was setting a trap.  She shook her head, refusing to answer. Could only hope the negative wasn’t an answer in itself.

Cullen responded to her retreat with a shrug. “Use it.”

“Excuse me?” Cari blinked at the order.  

“Whatever they think of you, use it. You are not delicate, but certainly you can see the advantage to being seen that way. So use it.”

With a shock of fulgurate realization Cari understood that Cullen was not as careful with her as she had initially thought.

“Do you manage Essa this well?” she asked sharply, mentally sifting through a dozen discarded suspicions in a hasty reassessment of the Inquisition’s commander.

She was not often wrong about a person, but she had missed his subtlety. The man was every bit as dangerous as Cari had hoped.

“No one manages Essa.” Cullen chuckled. “Not even a storm such as this. She’s fine. She’ll be here soon.”

Cari envied his faith, but she accepted the offering of it gratefully. She turned back to the window, watched water run in a torrent over the heavy leaded glass obscuring any hope of visibility until daybreak.

“You don’t have to wait with me,” she said as she resumed her impotent vigil.

“I know.” He settled in beside her, stared out at the night. “But it’s this or pace my own room waiting.”

“Have the two of you..?”

His blush was immediate, revealed soft with distance silver light and was so surprising that Cari’s answered, face going hot.

“I’m sorry!” His apology was just as swift. “I know you weren’t—that you would never ask something—“

He sighed. “The last two people to begin a question to me with those words were prying into private matters.”

“Sera and the Iron Bull?” Cari asked, though she knew it was unnecessary.

Cullen chuckled ruefully. “They believe they are looking out for us.”

“They do,” Cari agreed with a smile. “I’m rather jealous of their temerity.”

“Why? Do you have concerns?”

“I…” she sighed, counted the beats between lightning flash and thunder rumble, watched the storm move back toward the sea. “For both of you,” she finally conceded. “You’re both committed aren’t you? To one another I mean.”

“I think so.” He fell into stillness, not one to pace so much as settle, stalwart and unmoving, to defend. “I am.”

“Perhaps it’s talk you should have,” she suggested gingerly. “Once we’re home.”

She reached slowly for his arm, and Cullen canted his elbow out to her in accommodation. Cari tucked her hand in the crook and they stood quietly, watching the weather change.

“Are you going to talk to Krem?”


	7. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cari departs the Winter Palace and heads for the new templar stronghold at Clifton. Also Cullen and Cari are bffs. Have been since Convalescence. They just didn’t know it yet.

_ Are you going to talk to Krem? _

Two days later Cullen’s question still rattled around in Cari’s head, a persistent murmur somehow louder than the long hours of negotiations with the Empress Celene and her cabinet. Louder than the endless court gossip and melodious flatteries. Cari and her advisors had long made up their minds about what concessions she could agree to on the Inquisition’s behalf and there weren’t enough dinners and teas and breakfasts and walks in the gardens to make her forget herself, no matter how carefully such niceties were orchestrated for that exact purpose. While Celene’s council attempted to sway Cari on everything from outposts to trade agreements, she let the disparate voices gather at the back of her mind, a poorly syncopated rhythm easily ignored, and worried instead about a pair of warm brown eyes and an easy smile.

Neither of which she deserved.

It was horribly unprofessional, she knew, but the brooding was to her advantage. Her distraction appeared to the others as resolution and eventually they stopped trying to bargain with her, acknowledging both that the Inquisition had the upper hand and that they were asking for very little that they had not already claimed. It was, of course, in the best interest of Orlais that they support the Inquisition against Corypheus.  The Inquisitor concluded all negotiations with a reputation for not being a milksop.

And so it was done. Finally. Thank the Maker.

“Sister Leliana and I will leave late tomorrow,” Josephine said, quill scratching lightly over parchment and bringing Cari from her thoughts. “Commander Cullen wishes to see the latest improvements at Clifton so he will ride with you before returning to Skyhold.”

Cari made a noncommittal noise low in her throat, not quite glancing up from her morning tea. Cullen would also no doubt wish to meet with Ser Barris. There were so many plans and preparations to make for the upcoming campaign to the Arbor Wilds. Cari might have a reasonable head for politics, but war was not her forte. She was looking forward to handing the mantle of Inquisitor back to Essa.

“Are you well, my lady?”

For almost six months, Cari had taken her morning tea with Ambassador Montilyet and Sister Leliana. At first because they were curious about the Inquisitor’s older sister, but eventually Cari had come to accept that they enjoyed her company. They were on a first name basis now, though certainly that had been halted by the necessary safety of formalities observed at the Winter Palace. She was fond of them both, but she still had not learned to trust them. Even understanding the need, it was difficult to warm up to anyone who ultimately viewed her sister as a weapon.

Weapons were lost and broken on the battlefield. Every button on the Inquisition uniform reminded them of that.

“Of course.” The sudden silence finally drew Cari fully from her musings. She smiled gently. “There is much to do. I suppose I am looking forward to returning my usual duties.”

Strange to think that she missed both Skyhold and the templar stronghold, but she did. She had not though that she was wasting her life in Ostwick until the Inquisition found that she had so many talents with so many uses.  Now she could not fathom returning to her life before.

“Lady Trevelyan continues to petition the Inquisitor for Lady Carilyna’s return,” Josephine said, as if Cari’s thoughts had conjured her mother into their midst.

Josephine lifted an open letter from the stack of parchment before her.

“I am under strict orders,” she began hesitantly with what was code for “Essa has declared”—an occurrence so rare that her sister’s wishes were always obeyed. Josephine caught Cari’s gaze and nodded once before continuing.  “To both refuse her and not trouble you with her words.”

Cari took a sip of her tea, watched the early morning light gild Josephine in gold as the day itself had taken offense to the harsh lines of the Inquisition uniform.

“Should I…?” Josephine prompted gently.

“Your orders are sound, Ambassador.”

Cari would not gainsay Essa. She was honest enough to admit herself grateful for her sister’s protection. There were parts of her life she was ready to deal with and parts that she was not. She had learned in their time at the Winter Palace that she was not quite prepared to deal with her mother. She took a careful breath, set her tea on the dainty table before her.

“My sister intends to winter at Clifton,” Cari said.

“Oh?”

“I realize this seems impulsive.” She reached for a small iced cake and picked delicately at the candied flower on top. “But there is so much to do this winter, both there and at Skyhold. Surely the templars will require as much attention as our own forces.”

Josephine’s dark gaze was shrewd. She shifted the paperwork on her desk, clearing the blotter to give Cari her full attention.

“Such reasoning is sound,” she conceded, elbows coming to rest on the desktop. Josephine propped her chin on her hands. “I confess it feels most unexpected, however.”

Cari had almost become accustomed to speaking of herself as if she were someone else. She was looking forward to such subterfuge becoming unnecessary.

“A bit,” she agreed, pouring Josephine a cup of tea and carrying it to her. “But her presence at the stronghold will be good for moral, and Sister Leliana will no doubt be thankful for the constant eyes on the inside.”

“Thank you.” Josephine accepted the cup with a smile. “You assume she does not already have them.”

“Another cannot hurt.”

“No,” Josephine agreed and Cari felt something tight in her chest ease.

Andraste, preserve her, she had not realized how much anxiety was carrying until that moment.

“May I ask a personal question, Inquisitor?”

Cari nodded slowly, waited with her breath trapped tight around her heart.

“Has something happened that your sister would not wish to spend the winter at Skyhold?”

Point to you, Cari thought. She might count Josephine among her friends, but this wasn’t something she felt she could share. Bad enough that Cullen knew.

“I’m certain that isn’t the case, Ambassador.”

Lair. Coward. She had run from Ostwick, and now she was running from Skyhold.

*

They set out from Halamshiral late that morning against the sharp slant of autumn sun and amid considerable fanfare. Trumpets blaring, silk pennants snapping, and the empress of Orlais herself waving them down the Imperial Highway from the safety of her covered coach.  Cari had saved her life after all, and all of her nation would know it. As a recruitment strategy for the Orlesian army it was sound enough. The Herald was already an enticement to holy war for the devout. Now their cause appealed to the patriots as well.  If she sounded cynical, she could only blame her sister, but the truth was simple and terrible; wars needed soldiers.

And Thedas needed templars.

Clifton was a bit of a diplomatic nightmare waiting to happen, but Essa had laid some clever groundwork toward their near autonomy and Queen Anora of Ferelden was her unlikely but staunch ally. Not even Celene wanted to go up against them. At least at present. A great deal would depend on the new Divine, but even if the order was completely disbanded, the remaining men and women would have a place to call home. Cari still wasn’t sure how she felt about the near privatization of a religious army. Evangelical mercenaries trained to fight mages…that was a disaster that hardly bore thinking upon, but Essa had assured her it was only until a new Divine was chosen. Then the Inquisition would aid in negotiations between the order and the Chantry.

For now, it was enough that they had a place of their own.

Clifton, an unimaginative name for a place with a surprisingly lively voice, had sprung up as if by magic from the rubble of long abandoned ruins. In the six months since Essa acquired the land and ceded it to the Templar Order, the ruins that lay at the foot of the Frostbacks had been excavated and partially rebuilt. With the rifts in the Hinterlands closed, the templars had cleared the surrounding area of demons and bandits. The small farming villages that once dotted the countryside before being abandoned, had been rebuilt. As the land was secured, its peopled returned, moving closer to stronghold. In the shadow of walls yet unbuilt, a small, but proper settlement had arisen, with a smithy, a tavern, and a trade market that convened at week’s end. The chantry was the only fully completed stone structure; it spanned visual and social space between the small village and the hold that was still in progress. The order had taken its charge from the Herald seriously. They protected the people, worshipped with them, worked with them, took meals in the gleaming hall with any who did not have enough yet at their own tables.

Cari had never been so proud to be a part of something.

“Maker’s breath!” Cullen exclaimed softly beside her. “I knew that they had made progress on the keep, but this is…”

He shook his head, and the fall of his words conveyed his astonishment more than anything he might have said.

“Inspiring, isn’t it?” Cari arranged the heavy fall of her split skirts. The violet wool fell impeccably against her mare’s side, complementing Phyllis‘s soft grey coat. Cari had brushed her until she gleamed this morning, then done the same to herself before dressing with care—and no small part of relief—in her own clothes.

“Yes, it is.”

The hold was only about a third complete. Clifton’s stones, nearly white but for the red clay that shaded its birth, had been hewn from local quarries. The outer walls were finally complete and the fortress shone like muted dawn, pale orange and cream and soft sunlight reflected back as the sun began its descent. The roofs were up, though most were thatched temporarily. The kitchens, however, were utterly complete, boasting dark slate shingles and a wide chimney. Smoke rose in a steady plume above the keep. On the wind rode the scents of roasting meat and baking bread. 

“You and Barris have done extraordinary work,” Cullen added, startling Cari from her thoughts with the unexpected praise. “I see the barracks are finished.”

She followed his gaze to the northern side of the keep, cheeks flushed with more than the cool air drifting down from the mountains. 

“Yes, just in time for the winter. Everyone will have a warm bed and a snug roof over their head this winter. With any luck, we’ll finish the tower by spring.”

“And you’re still determined to winter here?”

“I am.” More and more the closer they drew to familiar stones. Skyhold was Essa’s, but Clifton, if there was such a place for Cari, felt like home.

He ran a sharp assessment over the holdings. “And where will you sleep?”

“Don’t worry, Cullen.” Cari smiled. “I won’t be in barracks if that’s your concern. There’s a little room off of the kitchen that was set aside for me from the beginning.”

“’A little—‘”

Cassandra’s laughter announced her approach and only added to Cullen’s impressive scowl.

“You must forgive the commander.” Her tone was so dry Cari expected it to crack beneath the hidden warmth of her humor. She was already smiling when Cassandra continued. “You and your sister have ruined his every presumption regarding nobility.”

“Indeed,” Cullen agreed, voice comically stilted. “It is as if I’ve no experience whatsoever with Nevarran princesses sleeping in tents slogging through the muck or—“

“Oh, enough!” Cassandra’s ire only made Cari giggle, which earned them both a grunt of irritation. “The two of you are nearly as bad as the other one.”

Cullen chuckled and shared a smirk of commiseration with Cari. “I suppose we should be flattered that it only takes the two of us to equal Essa.”

“As an annoyance?” Cassandra huffed. “You should be worried. She normally counts for at least a half dozen.”

She nudged her horse past them and continued along the road, her gelding’s tail swishing with lofty disgruntlement that would have stood his mistress proud had she any use for horses. Cullen might claim himself a woeful infantryman, but Cassandra was worse and without remorse.

Cari waited until the rest of their party had ridden by. They were a small number, a few scouts and soldiers. Everyone else--except for Josephine--was halfway to Skyhold by now.

“Do you think me a coward?” she asked.

Cullen turned to her in disbelief. “Why would anyone think such a thing?”

He was so genuinely affronted that she felt tears spring to her eyes.

“For…” Her voice faltered beneath the weight of his regard; Cari gestured helplessly toward Clifton.

“For taking a season to be certain of yourself?” Cullen asked. His brow furrowed, eyes still squinted through the bright afternoon.

Cari nodded.

“You do realize that Essa and I did the same,” he offered.

“When?” she asked, mentally going over what she knew of the previous year’s events.

“Last winter.”

“But you were …” She broke off frowning.

“We were…?”

“You were  _ so together _ when I arrived.” Cari said, shaking her head. “I assumed you had been that way for some time.”

Cullen laughed. “No, not at all,” he said quickly before rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, cheeks bright. “Maker’s breath, I was—“

He shook his head and cast the confession away unspoken.  “I grew up with two sisters. You need one of those long talks that would be better with Essa, but she’s not here.”

No. Cari had missed her chance to pour her troubles at her sister’s rarely still feet. Essa had ridden ahead of them to Skyhold, her own worries clear in her eyes.

“Come on.” Cullen’s horse eased forward at an unseen command. “Let’s go start the rounds. After supper, a cup of tea for you and a mug or three of ale for me and we’ll get this sorted.”

“Are you going to braid my hair too?” Cari asked, heart swelling so that she had no choice be to diffuse her words with humor lest they burst, tear-stained and heart-full into the waning day.

He grinned. “I can if you want. Another skill Mia bullied me into mastering before I left for the order. You know, training wasn’t nearly so arduous compared to life as her subordinate. I think they recruited the wrong Rutherford.” 

*

_ I grew up with two sisters.  _ He may as well have said  _ I know what I’m doing _ , and challenged the Maker directly. Clearly, Cullen thought as Cari stared at him through the low light of the tavern and her own insecurities. Cleary he was a foolish, arrogant man who needed to remember that neither Mia, nor Rosalie, nor working for over a year and a half with Josephine, Cassandra, and Leliana could ever be misinterpreted as preparation for the Trevelyan sisters.

“I tried to warn you,” Cari said, voice pitched low in the dwindling noise of the small tavern.

For several hours the diminutive space had been crowded nearly elbow to elbow with templars and villagers. Cari had a considerable following of both, a fact which had not surprised Cullen, but seemed to have caught her utterly off guard as dozens of people stopped in to welcome her back to Clifton. She had held court with well-mannered grace and would have been greatly offended, Cullen knew, if she were privy to the observation, but it was difficult not to see Cari Trevelyan as the best nobility from the oldest tales. Her bearing was genteel and welcoming, even in her coarse surroundings she was at ease in a gown that—while it would have disappointed the Winter Palace—was much too fine for Clifton. 

“You did,” Cullen scrubbed one hand roughly across his face before taking a swallow, then gulp of what remained of his ale.

“I thought—That is—“ He frowned across the table at her. “You know, I believed your sister had cured me of this blighted stuttering.”

Cari smiled. “You’re nothing if not an optimist, Commander.”

She raised the tankard of cider that had sat untouched for the greater part of the evening.  There had been dinner and dancing, but Cari had sipped only tea late into the evening, toasting with obvious pride the grand accomplishments that had been made in her absence. She saluted him now grimmer cheer.

Cullen sighed. “I expected your reticence…” Maker’s breath! There it was again, that prim, haughty tone Essa teased him about mercilessly. Cullen rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “When I imagined the reasons you were worried, that was not among them.”

“If you wish, I can take it back, we can pretend I said one of those more palatable reservations and I can go back to a point in my life when I did not just tell my sister’s lover that I have no interest in sex. With anyone.”

He blanched and pinched back a headache while he fumbled uselessly for the right thing to say.

“Ask your questions,” Cari said too casually. “I can see them gathering between your eyes and they must be good, you didn’t flinch at that ‘lover’ comment.”

The tavern had finally quieted. Had it been busier, he might indeed have had something to say about that lover comment, but as it was now past the order’s curfew, there were few around to cause Cullen undue concern.

“I suppose,” he began watching at how she did everything but fidget. Cari was not Essa to pace or worry something in her hands. She retreated into herself, the features of her face becoming a cold mask he no longer believed. “It makes sense.”

“It—“ Cari frowned at him in confusion. “What?”

“I’m sorry—I—“ had obviously said the wrong thing.

“No,” she shook her head. “ _ I’m _ sorry.  I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

She had hardly shouted, but Cullen would save that discussion for another time. He waited for her to continue.

“It’s just…you didn’t ask if I was certain. Or if I had bad experiences or…”

“Are you?” Cullen asked. “Did you?” He didn’t give her a chance to deflect or give an answer he wasn’t actually interested in. “I assume you know your own mind.”

“I do.” 

The smile that slowly crept across her face was the first blush of spring upon the mountains, soft and tentative, and then impenitent in its grandeur. He wondered how many had doubted or dismissed her after she had worked up the courage to confess something so private. It was, he realized, easing the sudden tension in his fists, a list that both he and Essa were better without.

“Will you tell me why it makes sense to you?” Cari asked softly.

Cullen shrugged, a bumbling, inelegant expression that he could only hope conveyed his hesitance to speak falsely.

“You’re her balance, aren’t you? I mean, I know that isn’t quite fair, but if you’re worrying about what’s ‘normal’ I can’t help but point at your sister and tell you normal doesn’t matter.”

He couldn’t stop his blush, but when she lifted the lavender mist of her eyes to his, Cullen's gaze didn’t waver.

“I can’t tell you what you should do.” He spread his hands on the table before them, flipped one over. She slipped her hand into his easily, without reservation. Essa still occasionally viewed the offered affection as a trap. Cullen squeezed her hand. “But you should talk to him. Cari, you’re…well, you’re wonderful in case no one has ever told you, and if someone tells you otherwise you send them to me. I can’t tell you how someone else will feel, but I can tell you what it’s like to be absolutely mad for someone. If Essa wanted only to hold my hand for the rest of our lives—“

He stared at Cari, words crowding into a pitiful jam that rendered him slack-jawed. “Maker’s breath! Am I really sitting here proposing to you in her stead?”

Cari’s head tipped back with the force of her laughter. It bubbled up loud and free, and long enough that Cullen finally saw—truly saw—the light she shared with her sister.

“Sounds like it,” she nodded, grin spreading wide against the rim of her tankard as she took a sip of her cider, giggles subsiding in what he could only assume was her bestowal of mercy.

“I’m not ready to propose to your sister.” He wanted to hide his face in his hands, could only chastise himself for his faintheartedness. It was a lie, of course. The truth lay closer to him not being prepared for Essa’s answer.

The commander of the Inquisition, indeed.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Cari mused so mildly that Cullen could only glare ominously. Her laughter bounced unfettered toward the rafters.

“Is this your idea of revenge for my telling you to talk to Krem?”

“It really isn’t,” Cari snickered, dabbing tears of laughter from her eyes with the hem of one sleeve. “But, Andraste forgive me, I’ll count it as such.”

She took pity on his misery, clasped his fingers gently.

“For what it’s worth, I’d be glad to call you brother.”

  
  



End file.
